Podcasts about kicking horse

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2025 78:17

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast is a reader-supported publication (and my full-time job). To receive new posts and to support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.WhoChris Cushing, Principal of Mountain Planning at SE GroupRecorded onApril 3, 2025About SE GroupFrom the company's website:WE AREMountain planners, landscape architects, environmental analysts, and community and recreation planners. From master planning to conceptual design and permitting, we are your trusted partner in creating exceptional experiences and places.WE BELIEVEThat human and ecological wellbeing forms the foundation for thriving communities.WE EXISTTo enrich people's lives through the power of outdoor recreation.If that doesn't mean anything to you, then this will:Why I interviewed himNature versus nurture: God throws together the recipe, we bake the casserole. A way to explain humans. Sure he's six foot nine, but his mom dropped him into the intensive knitting program at Montessori school 232, so he can't play basketball for s**t. Or identical twins, separated at birth. One grows up as Sir Rutherford Ignacious Beaumont XIV and invents time travel. The other grows up as Buford and is the number seven at Okey-Doke's Quick Oil Change & Cannabis Emporium. The guts matter a lot, but so does the food.This is true of ski areas as well. An earthquake here, a glacier there, maybe a volcanic eruption, and, presto: a non-flat part of the earth on which we may potentially ski. The rest is up to us.It helps if nature was thoughtful enough to add slopes of varying but consistent pitch, a suitable rise from top to bottom, a consistent supply of snow, a flat area at the base, and some sort of natural conduit through which to move people and vehicles. But none of that is strictly necessary. Us humans (nurture), can punch green trails across solid-black fall lines (Jackson Hole), bulldoze a bigger hill (Caberfae), create snow where the clouds decline to (Wintergreen, 2022-23), plant the resort base at the summit (Blue Knob), or send skiers by boat (Eaglecrest).Someone makes all that happen. In North America, that someone is often SE Group, or their competitor, Ecosign. SE Group helps ski areas evolve into even better ski areas. That means helping to plan terrain expansions, lift replacements, snowmaking upgrades, transit connections, parking enhancements, and whatever built environment is under the ski area's control. SE Group is often the machine behind those Forest Service ski area master development plans that I so often spotlight. For example, Vail Mountain:When I talk about Alta consolidating seven slow lifts into four fast lifts; or Little Switzerland carving their mini-kingdom into beginner, parkbrah, and racer domains; or Mount Bachelor boosting its power supply to run more efficiently, this is the sort of thing that SE plots out (I'm not certain if they were involved in any or all of those projects).Analyzing this deliberate crafting of a natural bump into a human playground is the core of what The Storm is. I love, skiing, sure, but specifically lift-served skiing. I'm sure it's great to commune with the raccoons or whatever it is you people do when you discuss “skinning” and “AT setups.” But nature left a few things out. Such as: ski patrol, evacuation sleds, avalanche control, toilet paper, water fountains, firepits, and a place to charge my phone. Oh and chairlifts. And directional signs with trail ratings. And a snack bar.Skiing is torn between competing and contradictory narratives: the misanthropic, which hates crowds and most skiers not deemed sufficiently hardcore; the naturalistic, which mistakes ski resorts with the bucolic experience that is only possible in the backcountry; the preservationist, with its museum-ish aspirations to glasswall the obsolete; the hyperactive, insisting on all fast lifts and groomed runs; the fatalists, who assume inevitable death-of-concept in a warming world.None of these quite gets it. Ski areas are centers of joy and memory and bonhomie and possibility. But they are also (mostly), businesses. They are also parks, designed to appeal to as many skiers as possible. They are centers of organized risk, softened to minimize catastrophic outcomes. They must enlist machine aid to complement natural snowfall and move skiers up those meddlesome but necessary hills. Ski areas are nature, softened and smoothed and labelled by their civilized stewards, until the land is not exactly a representation of either man or God, but a strange and wonderful hybrid of both.What we talked aboutOld-school Cottonwoods vibe; “the Ikon Pass has just changed the industry so dramatically”; how to become a mountain planner for a living; what the mountain-planning vocation looked like in the mid-1980s; the detachable lift arrives; how to consolidate lifts without sacrificing skier experience; when is a lift not OK?; a surface lift resurgence?; how sanctioned glades changed ski areas; the evolution of terrain parks away from mega-features; the importance of terrain parks to small ski areas; reworking trails to reduce skier collisions; the curse of the traverse; making Jackson more approachable; on terrain balance; how megapasses are redistributing skier visits; how to expand a ski area without making traffic worse; ski areas that could evolve into major destinations; and ski area as public park or piece of art.What I got wrong* I blanked on the name of the famous double chair at A-Basin. It is Pallavicini.* I called Crystal Mountain's two-seater served terrain “North Country or whatever” – it is actually called “Northway.”* I said that Deer Valley would become the fourth- or fifth-largest ski resort in the nation once its expansion was finished. It will become the sixth-largest, at 4,926 acres, when the next expansion phase opens for winter 2025-26, and will become the fourth-largest, at 5,726 acres, at full build out.* I estimated Kendall Mountain's current lift-served ski footprint at 200 vertical feet; it is 240 feet.Why now was a good time for this interviewWe have a tendency, particularly in outdoor circles, to lionize the natural and shame the human. Development policy in the United States leans heavily toward “don't,” even in areas already designated for intensive recreation. We mustn't, plea activists: expand the Palisades Tahoe base village; build a gondola up Little Cottonwood Canyon; expand ski terrain contiguous with already-existing ski terrain at Grand Targhee.I understand these impulses, but I believe they are misguided. Intensive but thoughtful, human-scaled development directly within and adjacent to already-disturbed lands is the best way to limit the larger-scale, long-term manmade footprint that chews up vast natural tracts. That is: build 1,000 beds in what is now a bleak parking lot at Palisades Tahoe, and you limit the need for homes to be carved out of surrounding forests, and for hundreds of cars to daytrip into the ski area. Done right, you even create a walkable community of the sort that America conspicuously lacks.To push back against, and gradually change, the Culture of No fueling America's mountain town livability crises, we need exhibits of these sorts of projects actually working. More Whistlers (built from scratch in the 1980s to balance tourism and community) and fewer Aspens (grandfathered into ski town status with a classic street and building grid, but compromised by profiteers before we knew any better). This is the sort of work SE is doing: how do we build a better interface between civilization and nature, so that the former complements, rather than spoils, the latter?All of which is a little tangential to this particular podcast conversation, which focuses mostly on the ski areas themselves. But America's ski centers, established largely in the middle of the last century, are aging with the towns around them. Just about everything, from lifts to lodges to roads to pipes, has reached replacement age. Replacement is a burden, but also an opportunity to create a better version of something. Our ski areas will not only have faster lifts and newer snowguns – they will have fewer lifts and fewer guns that carry more people and make more snow, just as our built footprint, thoughtfully designed, can provide more homes for more people on less space and deliver more skiers with fewer vehicles.In a way, this podcast is almost a canonical Storm conversation. It should, perhaps, have been episode one, as every conversation since has dealt with some version of this question: how do humans sculpt a little piece of nature into a snowy park that we visit for fun? That is not an easy or obvious question to answer, which is why SE Group exists. Much as I admire our rough-and-tumble Dave McCoy-type founders, that improvisational style is trickier to execute in our highly regulated, activist present.And so we rely on artist-architects of the SE sort, who inject the natural with the human without draining what is essential from either. Done well, this crafted experience feels wild. Done poorly – as so much of our legacy built environment has been – and you generate resistance to future development, even if that future development is better. But no one falls in love with a blueprint. Experiencing a ski area as whatever it is you think a ski area should be is something you have to feel. And though there is a sort of magic animating places like Alta and Taos and Mammoth and Mad River Glen and Mount Bohemia, some ineffable thing that bleeds from the earth, these ski areas are also outcomes of a human-driven process, a determination to craft the best version of skiing that could exist for mass human consumption on that shred of the planet.Podcast NotesOn MittersillMittersill, now part of Cannon Mountain, was once a separate ski area. It petered out in the mid-‘80s, then became a sort of Cannon backcountry zone circa 2009. The Mittersill double arrived in 2010, followed by a T-bar in 2016.On chairlift consolidationI mention several ski areas that replaced a bunch of lifts with fewer lifts:The HighlandsIn 2023, Boyne-owned The Highlands wiped out three ancient Riblet triples and replaced them with this glorious bubble six-pack:Here's a before-and-after:Vernon Valley-Great Gorge/Mountain CreekI've called Intrawest's transformation of Vernon Valley-Great Gorge into Mountain Creek “perhaps the largest single-season overhaul of a ski area in the history of lift-served skiing.” Maybe someone can prove me wrong, but just look at this place circa 1989:It looked substantively the same in 1998, when, in a single summer, Intrawest tore out 18 lifts – 15 double chairs, two platters, and a T-bar, plus God knows how many ropetows – and replaced them with two high-speed quads, two fixed-grip quads, and a bucket-style Cabriolet lift that every normal ski area uses as a parking lot transit machine:I discussed this incredible transformation with current Hermitage Club GM Bill Benneyan, who worked at Mountain Creek in 1998, back in 2020:I misspoke on the podcast, saying that Intrawest had pulled out “something like a dozen lifts” and replaced them with “three or four” in 1998.KimberleyBack in the time before social media, Kimberley, British Columbia ran four frontside chairlifts: a high-speed quad, a triple, a double, and a T-bar:Beginning in 2001, the ski area slowly removed everything except the quad. Which was fine until an arsonist set fire to Kimberley's North Star Express in 2021, meaning skiers had no lift-served option to the backside terrain:I discussed this whole strange sequence of events with Andy Cohen, longtime GM of sister resort Fernie, on the podcast last year:On Revelstoke's original masterplanIt is astonishing that Revelstoke serves 3,121 acres with just five lifts: a gondola, two high-speed quads, a fixed quad, and a carpet. Most Midwest ski areas spin three times more lifts for three percent of the terrain.On Priest Creek and Sundown at SteamboatSteamboat, like many ski areas, once ran two parallel fixed-grip lifts on substantively the same line, with the Priest Creek double and the Sundown triple. The Sundown Express quad arrived in 1992, but Steamboat left Priest Creek standing for occasional overflow until 2021. Here's Steamboat circa 1990:Priest Creek is gone, but that entire 1990 lift footprint is nearly unrecognizable. Huge as Steamboat is, every arriving skier squeezes in through a single portal. One of Alterra's first priorities was to completely re-imagine the base area: sliding the existing gondola looker's right; installing an additional 10-person, two-stage gondola right beside it; and moving the carpets and learning center to mid-mountain:On upgrades at A-BasinWe discuss several upgrades at A-Basin, including Lenawee, Beavers, and Pallavicini. Here's the trailmap for context:On moguls on Kachina Peak at TaosYeah I'd say this lift draws some traffic:On the T-bar at Waterville ValleyWaterville Valley opened in 1966. Fifty-two years later, mountain officials finally acknowledged that chairlifts do not work on the mountain's top 400 vertical feet. All it took was a forced 1,585-foot shortening of the resort's base-to-summit high-speed quad just eight years after its 1988 installation and the legacy double chair's continued challenges in wind to say, “yeah maybe we'll just spend 90 percent less to install a lift that's actually appropriate for this terrain.” That was the High Country T-bar, which arrived in 2018. It is insane to look at ‘90s maps of Waterville pre- and post-chop job:On Hyland Hills, MinnesotaWhat an insanely amazing place this is:On Sunrise ParkFrom 1983 to 2017, Sunrise Park, Arizona was home to the most amazing triple chair, a 7,982-foot-long Yan with 352 carriers. Cyclone, as it was known, fell apart at some point and the resort neglected to fix or replace it. A couple of years ago, they re-opened the terrain to lift-served skiing with a low-cost alternative: stringing a ropetow from a green run off the Geronimo lift to where Cyclone used to land.On Woodward Park City and BorealPowdr has really differentiated itself with its Woodward terrain parks, which exist at amazing scale at Copper and Bachelor. The company has essentially turned two of its smaller ski areas – Boreal and Woodward Park City – entirely over to terrain parks.On Killington's tunnelsYou have to zoom in, but you can see them on the looker's right side of the trailmap: Bunny Buster at Great Northern, Great Bear at Great Northern, and Chute at Great Northern.On Jackson Hole traversesJackson is steep. Engineers hacked it so kids like mine could ride there:On expansions at Beaver Creek, Keystone, AspenRecent Colorado expansions have tended to create vast zones tailored to certain levels of skiers:Beaver Creek's McCoy Park is an incredible top-of-the-mountain green zone:Keystone's Bergman Bowl planted a high-speed six-pack to serve 550 acres of high-altitude intermediate terrain:And Aspen – already one of the most challenging mountains in the country – added Hero's – a fierce black-diamond zone off the summit:On Wilbere at SnowbirdWilbere is an example of a chairlift that kept the same name, even as Snowbird upgraded it from a double to a quad and significantly moved the load station and line:On ski terrain growth in AmericaYes, a bunch of ski areas have disappeared since the 1980s, but the raw amount of ski terrain has been increasing steadily over the decades:On White Pine, WyomingCushing referred to White Pine as a “dinky little ski area” with lots of potential. Here's a look at the thousand-footer, which billionaire Joe Ricketts purchased last year:On Deer Valley's expansionYeah, Deer Valley is blowing up:On Schweitzer's growthSchweitzer's transformation has been dramatic: in 1988, the Idaho panhandle resort occupied a large footprint that was served mostly by double chairs:Today: a modern ski area, with four detach quads, a sixer, and two newer triples – only one old chairlift remains:On BC transformationsA number of British Columbia ski areas have transformed from nubbins to majors over the past 30 years:Sun Peaks, then known as Tod Mountain, in 1993Sun Peaks today:Fernie in 1996, pre-upward expansion:Fernie today:Revelstoke, then known as Mount Mackenzie, in 1996:Modern Revy:Kicking Horse, then known as “Whitetooth” in 1994:Kicking Horse today:On Tamarack's expansion potentialTamarack sits mostly on Idaho state land, and would like to expand onto adjacent U.S. Forest Service land. Resort President Scott Turlington discussed these plans in depth with me on the pod a few years back:The mountain's plans have changed since, with a smaller lift footprint:On Central Park as a manmade placeNew York City's fabulous Central Park is another chunk of earth that may strike a visitor as natural, but is in fact a manmade work of art crafted from the wilderness. Per the Central Park Conservancy, which, via a public-private partnership with the city, provides the majority of funds, labor, and logistical support to maintain the sprawling complex:A popular misconception about Central Park is that its 843 acres are the last remaining natural land in Manhattan. While it is a green sanctuary inside a dense, hectic metropolis, this urban park is entirely human-made. It may look like it's naturally occurring, but the flora, landforms, water, and other features of Central Park have not always existed.Every acre of the Park was meticulously designed and built as part of a larger composition—one that its designers conceived as a "single work of art." Together, they created the Park through the practice that would come to be known as "landscape architecture."The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

united states america god culture arizona planning development hero north america bachelor park mountain manhattan gm principal engineers idaho experiencing british columbia analyzing fifty replacement central park copper skiing woodward ski montessori mammoths beavers highlands keystone intensive cyclone jackson hole yan andy cohen chute sundown basin forest service geronimo cushing steamboats taos buford snowbirds north country boreal beaver creek great northern waterville boyne fernie revelstoke cabriolet wintergreen deer valley great bear white pine northway aspens crystal mountain little cottonwood canyon alterra sun peaks joe ricketts central park conservancy mountain creek palisades tahoe lenawee dave mccoy little switzerland kicking horse mittersill intrawest mad river glen woodward park city riblet

FWT CEO Nicolas Hale-Woods - Season End Interview

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 30, 2025 34:28

We're joined by Freeride World Tour CEO Nicolas Hale-Woods to discuss the big stories of the season, starting with the much-celebrated return of the FWT to Alaska. We also get his take on the loss of the Kicking Horse stop and how that's not the end of the partnership. Nicolas gives us some clarity into the differing Region 1 and 2 Challenger formats, offering a behind-the-scenes look at how the tour is developing its pipeline of future talent. To round out the conversation, Nico lays out the format for the upcoming, and inaugural, World Championships and how riders are qualified. 0:00 Welcome Nicolas 00:12 Surefoot 3:20 - FWT Returns to Alaska 6:00 - Kicking Horse 12:08 - 2 Different Challenger Formats 25:50 - World Championships Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Khl-3nVXWPU ---- * The Freeride Guide is Supported By* Surefoot Custom Ski Boots - Ski the Surefoot Difference ---- WE HAVE MERCH!! Support the show with a shirt - https://lowpressurepodcast.com/shop/ --- Insta360 X5 Action Cam - Get a FREE Accessory on us! w/ Code "lowpressure" Skull Candy Headphones - 15% OFF w/ Code "WELCOME15" --- Send us an email to the Backslap Inbox - Tell us your hot take and we might read it on the show. backslap@freerideguidepodcast.com --- About the Hosts: Mark Warner is the Host of Low Pressure Podcast: The Podcast for Skiers. Derek Foose is the FWT Broadcast Announcer and Head Coach at Whistler Freeride Club and both are huge Freeride Fans. Follow on Instagram @thefreerideguide @red_mark @dfoose

events code alaska head coach region world championships challenger hale ski snowboards skiers freeride world tour fwt kicking horse surefoot

FWT25 | Full SEASON RECAP

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2025 85:52

This is the Full Season RECAP and Mark and Derek are putting a bow on it by revisiting the key events, news and highlights from the 2025 Freeride World Tour Season that was. Recorded @ Surefoot Whistler 0:00 - Intro 4:18 - Backslap Inbox 13:58 - New Announcers 1 9:45 - Baqueira Beret 27:08 - Val Thorens 32:48 - Kicking Horse 38:35 - Georgia 36:23 - Fieberbrunn 54:33 - Verbier & Final Results 1:23:00 - Wrap Up Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dKnKBcfetMg ---- * The Freeride Guide is Supported By* Surefoot Custom Ski Boots - Ski the Surefoot Difference ---- WE HAVE MERCH!! Support the show with a shirt - https://lowpressurepodcast.com/shop/ --- Insta360 4X Action Cam - Get a FREE Accessory w/ Code "lowpressure" Skull Candy Headphones - 15% OFF w/ Code "WELCOME15" --- Send us an email to the Backslap Inbox - Tell us your hot take and we might read it on the show. backslap@freerideguidepodcast.com --- About the Hosts: Mark Warner is the Host of Low Pressure Podcast: The Podcast for Skiers. Derek Foose is the FWT Broadcast Announcer and Head Coach at Whistler Freeride Club and both are huge Freeride Fans. Follow on Instagram @thefreerideguide @red_mark @dfoose

code head coach season recap skiing snowboarding skiers full season freeride world tour val thorens kicking horse fieberbrunn

Molly Armanino on Her FWT Win; New Film; Comp Life; Coping with Loss; & More

BLISTER Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2025 74:02

Molly Armanino recently won the FWT comp in Kicking Horse; her new film, Slopes of Change, comes out today; and she is currently in the country of Georgia on hold waiting for the next FWT comp. So Jonathan spoke with Molly about all of the above, plus her relationships with pro skiers McKenna Peterson and Josh Daiek; working with a sports psychologist; and more.RELATED LINKSMolly's Film, Slopes of ChangeMolly's Winning Run @ Kicking HorseBLISTER+ Get Yourself CoveredTOPICS & TIMES:BLISTER+ Members Update (0:52)Waiting to Compete in Georgia (2:40)Winning at Kicking Horse (9:30)Does the Win Change Your Expectations? (12:17)Decision Making During a Comp Run (14:14)Last Year's Run in Georgia (16:26)New Film, Slopes Of Change (24:29)Molly's Brother, Sam (28:29)Operating after Loss (35:37)Friendship, McKenna Peterson (40:34)Josh Daiek (45:27)Working with a Sports Psychologist (50:55)Finding a Strong Support System (56:55)Why Did You Become a BLISTER+ Member? (1:04:22)What to Do While Waiting in Georgia? (1:08:38)CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Blister CinematicCRAFTED Bikes & Big IdeasGEAR:30 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

film change brothers friendship loss winning run acast operating compete comp new film slopes sports psychologists coping with loss fwt kicking horse

Kicking Horse Golden BCPro RECAP | FWT25 Stop #3

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2025 84:50

This is the full RECAP of the FWT25 Kicking Horse Golden BC Pro Featuring: Molly Armanino and Lily Bradley The third event of the 2025 season was held on a cold, clear day in perfect competition conditions at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Beautiful Golden BC, Canada. The riders returned to the Ozone face this year after having to change venues in 2024. The Canadian fans showed up, braved the cold and were rewarded with 3 of their own standing on the podium. Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ztS18vASmv4 The Freeride Guide is Supported By: Surefoot Skiing Insta360 X4 Action Cam - Get a FREE Accessory w/ Code "lowpressure" - https://www.insta360.com/sal/x4?utm_term=lowpressure Skull Candy Headphones - 15% OFF w/ Code "WELCOME15" - https://classic.avantlink.com/click.php?tool_type=ml&merchant_link_id=530eb70e-b72b-410f-986f-68f3c40d0a46&website_id=25a8fb5f-68b0-403f-9dd6-c57cdec92cfb&custom_tracking_code=YouTube%20-%20Freeride%20Guide --- Send us an email! Tell us your hot take and we might read it on the show. backslap@freerideguide.com - Join our Freeride Guide Podcast FUN BET League: https://peakperformance.pronosticgames.fr/tribe/fac0332d-6096-469c-8859-08dd35506ec2 -Go to link above -Click Leagues -Find the The Freeride Guide League -Join in and play along! --- About the Hosts: Mark Warner is the Host of the Skiing's First Podcast, Low Pressure Podcast: The Podcast for Skiers. Derek Foose is the FWT Broadcast Announcer and Head Coach at Whistler Freeride Club and both are huge Freeride Fans. Follow on Instagram @thefreerideguide @red_mark @dfoose

canada canadian horses code competition golden head coach first podcast skiing ozone snowboarding skiers freeride world tour kicking horse

FRG BONUS: Face Check Interviews at Kicking Horse Golden BC Pro

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 7, 2025 13:25

We're at the Kicking Horse / Golden BC Pro during the face check the day before the event and spoke to several riders, and one judge, about how they see the face and how they're feeling about the impending competition. Featuring: Valentin Rainer, Tilden Wooley, Ross Tester and Jaqueline Pollard The Freeride Guide is Supported By: Surefoot Skiing Insta360 4X Action Cam - Get a FREE Accessory w/ Code "lowpressure" - https://www.insta360.com/sal/x4?utm_term=lowpressure Skull Candy Headphones - 15% OFF w/ Code "WELCOME15" - https://classic.avantlink.com/click.php?tool_type=ml&merchant_link_id=530eb70e-b72b-410f-986f-68f3c40d0a46&website_id=25a8fb5f-68b0-403f-9dd6-c57cdec92cfb&custom_tracking_code=YouTube%20-%20Freeride%20Guide --- Send us an email! Tell us your hot take and we might read it on the show. backslap@freerideguide.com - Join our Freeride Guide Podcast FUN BET League: https://peakperformance.pronosticgames.fr/tribe/fac0332d-6096-469c-8859-08dd35506ec2 -Go to link above -Click Leagues -Find the The Freeride Guide League -Join in and play along! --- About the Hosts: Mark Warner is the Host of the Skiing's First Podcast, Low Pressure Podcast: The Podcast for Skiers. Derek Foose is the FWT Broadcast Announcer and Head Coach at Whistler Freeride Club and both are huge Freeride Fans. Follow on Instagram @thefreerideguide @red_mark @dfoose

horses code golden head coach first podcast skiing snowboarding skiers freeride world tour kicking horse

It's Always Rainy in Lake Tahoe | E53

Mind the Track

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2024 102:11

In the final episode of 2024, the boys catch up on a variety of topics just before PowBot hits the road for a month-long ski adventure on the Powder Highway of Canada, including Trail Whisperer's story of driving the Powder Highway right as COVID hit in early 2020. The new snow reporter, Al Powcino, makes his debut with a wet and soggy forecast, Trail Whisperer presents the most compelling evidence yet that the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption is linked to the last two years of record-breaking global warming, the boys discuss the 2024 word of the year, “Brain Rot”, and Trail Whisperer recounts his recent visit to San Diego chasing the massive surf swell. Pepper in a few Dope or Derps and 2024 is complete. Thanks to all our listeners for an awesome second season of Mind the Track! 3:00 – Artificial Intelligence and snow forecasting.5:50 – Christmas Day – Pow Day at Sugar Bowl, death cookies at Mount Rose and holiday traffic.8:20 – PowBot gets Trail Whisperer a Christmas gift – a bicycling book from Japan.11:00 – Dope or Derp? eSkimo – the ebike of backcountry skiing.15:50 – Dope or Derp? Christmas gifts and Christmas trees.21:10 – Sam and Trail Whisperer went to San Diego before Christmas to surf the big swell.27:30 – PowBot is about to embark on a road trip to the Powder Highway of Canada and going to the Meadow Hut with Golden Alpine Holidays.29:25 – Driving the Powder Highway, Trans-Canada Highway, Revelstoke, Kelowna, Golden.32:45 – Revelstoke and Kicking Horse – awesome mountains but no chairlift infrastructure.35:10 – Crystal Mountain in Washington.36:00 – Chairlift evacuation malfunctions at Heavenly, Telluride, Winter Park and France. What's the longest you've ever spent on a broken chairlift?41:00 – Golden Alpine Holidays and Meadow Hut in the Esplanade Range north of Golden.42:00 – Banff National Park – Amazing winter campground with 110V power and heated showers.44:10 – Dope or Derp? Driving and passing someone on a double yellow.48:20 – Oxford University Press Word of the Year – “Brain Rot”.50:15 – The Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption and it's effect on recent climate change. Scientists are beginning to acknowledge its effects on the suddenly warming climate.52:10 – Dr. Javier Vinos – author of Climate of the Past, Present and Future, a Scientific Debate, summarizes Hunga Tonga's effect on the rapid warming of the climate.58:10 – Mind the Track introduces the new Powderiffic Snow Report correspondent – Al Powcino!1:02:30 – Low tide snow conditions in Tahoe and Shasta Avalanche Center employees rescue a lost and frozen duck at 10,000 feet elevation and released it at a creek in town.1:05:00 – News – EXPLORE Act passed by Congress – legislation focused on improving outdoor recreation access, including BOLT Act - Bicycling on Long Distance Trails.1:08:50 – Outdoor recreation is a $1.2 trillion industry supporting 5 million jobs in the U.S.1:10:30 – Toyota takes every spot in vehicles most likely to last 250,000 miles or more, including the Tacoma, Tundra, Sequoia, 4Runner and Highlander Hybrid.1:13:35 – New study shows staggering number of spinal cord injuries with mountain bikers.1:15:20 – Hoot Trail in Nevada City – continued drama about its future.1:23:25 – Trail Whisperer's story about driving the Powder Highway at the beginning of COVID.1:29:40 – On a musical note - @facemelts – King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, The Osees, Queens of the Stone Age, Screaming Trees, Mark Lanegan.1:35:45 – Do you listen to music when you ski or ride your bike?1:39:30 – Thanks to all our listeners for an awesome 2024. Growing fast!

Podcast #183: Fernie Alpine Resort General Manager Andy Cohen

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 18, 2024 73:50

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Oct. 11. It dropped for free subscribers on Oct. 18. To receive future episodes as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoAndy Cohen, General Manager of Fernie Alpine Resort, British ColumbiaRecorded onSeptember 3, 2024About FernieClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, which also owns:Located in: Fernie, British ColumbiaPass affiliations:* Epic Pass: 7 days, shared with Kicking Horse, Kimberley, Nakiska, Stoneham, and Mont-Sainte Anne* RCR Rockies Season Pass: unlimited access, along with Kicking Horse, Kimberley, and NakiskaClosest neighboring ski areas: Fairmont Hot Springs (1:15), Kimberley (1:27), Panorama (1:45) – travel times vary considerably given time of year and weather conditionsBase elevation: 3,450 feet/1,052 metersSummit elevation: 7,000 feet/2,134 metersVertical drop: 3,550 feet/1,082 metersSkiable Acres: 2,500+Average annual snowfall: 360 inches/914 Canadian inches (also called centimeters)Trail count: 145 named runs plus five alpine bowls and tree skiing (4% extreme, 21% expert, 32% advanced, 30% intermediate, 13% novice)Lift count: 10 (2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 1 T-bar, 1 Poma, 1 conveyor - view Lift Blog's inventory of Fernie's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himOne of the most irritating dwellers of the #SkiInternet is Shoosh Emoji Bro. This Digital Daniel Boone, having boldly piloted his Subaru beyond the civilized bounds of Interstate 70, considers all outlying mountains to be his personal domain. So empowered, he patrols the digital sphere, dropping shoosh emojis on any poster that dares to mention Lost Trail or White Pass or Baker or Wolf Creek. Like an overzealous pamphleteer, he slings his brand haphazardly, toward any mountain kingdom he deems worthy of his forcefield. Shoosh Emoji Bro once Shoosh Emoji-ed me over a post about Alta.

covid-19 america american canada google washington americans canadian colorado north america drop pennsylvania harvard epic states sea discovery beatles vancouver montana shopping general managers bc trail lift average british columbia jupiter calgary exposure parallel resort north star rockies panorama hmmm alpine skiing new brunswick interstate ski corpus christi mammoths american west resorts keystone subaru jackson hole park city whistler vail andy cohen facelift taos whitewater silver star telluride breckenridge sun valley black forest la nina squamish ikon canadian rockies cbc news wolf creek whitefish summit county boyne rcr fernie big mountain poma british columbians vail resorts big white whiteface red mountain stoneham squaw corbet revy couloir cmh copper mountain little cottonwood canyon whistler blackcomb alterra sun peaks brobot rossland jeff coleman stalking horse white pass epic pass kicking horse tsbc

210: Baquiera Beret in Spain & the growth of skiing in China

The Ski Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2024 52:58

We discuss Baqueira Beret in Spain and finding out about skiing in China – the fastest growing ski market in the world. Iain was joined by freelance journalist, Gabriella Le Breton and Justin Downes, President of Axis Leisure, who specialise in resort development in China. SHOW NOTES Gaby last skied in Andermatt (1:30) Listen to Iain's interview with Mike Goar, CEO of Vail Resorts in Andermatt (2:00) [Video] Things Americans find shocking about skiing in Europe! (3:30) Justin was last on snow at the indoor slope in Wuhan, China (4:15) Andy Butterworth from Kaluma Ski skied in St Anton and Ischgl (5:00) The Black Eyed Peas are playing at Ischgl's closing party (6:45) Susie Burt reported from Chamonix (8:00) Alex Armand from Tip Top Ski Coaching is in Les 2 Alpes (9:45) Listen to Iain's interview in Episode 209 about the new Jandri 3S lift (11:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0hrmQgVGg Les 2 Alpes will remain open until 07 July Huge thank you to Messy Weekend for replacing the ski goggles I lost in Verbier (14:30) Take a look at the Vallon vizors here (15:15) Gaby visited Baqueira Beret in the Spanish Pyrénées (16:14) Heliskiing is possible in Baqueira (25:00) Justin previously worked at Whistler and Kicking Horse in Canada (28:00) He then managed Hotham in Australia (30:00) Justin is now President of Axis Leisure (31:45) China has more indoor snowdomes than the rest of the world combined (32:15) There were around 30m skier days in China in 23/24, compared with around 50m in the USA (33:30) Justin expects China will become the biggest snowsports market in the world in 2025 (34:15) Eileen Gu and Su Yuming are huge influences on the growth of Chinese skiing (43:15) Feedback I enjoy all feedback about the show, I like to know what you think, especially about our features so please contact on social @theskipodcast or by email theskipodcast@gmail.com Oliver Rutman: "Really great episode with Xavier De La Rue" Quin Rescigno: "I found your podcast recently and have enjoyed listening." Darren Jer: "Congrats on getting the new Vail Resorts executive of Andermatt on your show." If you like the podcast, there are two things you can do to help: 1) Review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 2) Subscribe (find all the links here at PodFollow) There are 215 episodes to catch up with and 134 were listened to in the last week. In the last week, 56% of our listeners were in the UK, 13% in the States and the remaining 31% across the world, including Turkey, Vietnam and Japan. You can follow me @skipedia and the podcast @theskipodcast

Podcast #169: Panorama Mountain President & CEO Steve Paccagnan

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2024 85:21

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on April 16. It dropped for free subscribers on April 23. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoSteve Paccagnan, President and CEO of Panorama Mountain, British ColumbiaRecorded onMarch 27, 2024About PanoramaClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Panorama Mountain Village, Inc., a group of local investorsLocated in: Panorama, British Columbia, CanadaYear founded: 1962Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 7 days, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass: 5 days, holiday blackouts* Mountain Collective: 2 days, no blackouts* Lake Louise Pass: view details hereClosest neighboring ski areas: Fairmont Hot Springs (:45), Kimberley (1:43), Kicking Horse (1:54) – travel times will vary considerably depending upon road conditions and time of yearBase elevation: 3,773 feet/1,150 metersSummit elevation: 8,038 feet/2,450 metersVertical drop: 4,265 feet/1,300 metersSkiable Acres: 2,975Average annual snowfall: 204 inches/520 centimetersTrail count: 135 (30% expert, 20% advanced, 35% intermediate, 15% beginner)Lift count: 10 (1 eight-passenger pulse gondola, 2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 1 platter, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Panorama's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himU.S. America is making a mistake. In skiing, as in so many other arenas, we prioritize status quo protectionism over measured, holistic development that would reorient our built environments around humans, rather than cars, shrinking our overall impact while easing our access to the mountains and permitting more people to enjoy them. Our cluttered and interminable western approach roads, our mountain-town housing shortages, our liftlines backed up to Kansas are all the result of deliberate generational decisions to prioritize cars over transit, open space over dense walkable communities, and blanket wilderness protection over metered development of new public ski areas in regions where the established businesses - and their surrounding infrastructure - are overwhelmed.I write about these things a lot. This pisses some of you off. I'm OK with that. I'm not here to recycle the broken ideas that have made U.S. skiing into the mess that (in some fundamental ways, in certain regions) it is. I'm here to figure out how it can be better. The skiing itself, mind you, tends to be fabulous. It is everything that surrounds the mountains that can spoil the experience: the cost, the hassle, the sprawl. There are better ways to do this, to get people to the mountains and to house them there, both to live and to vacation. We know this because other countries already do a lot of the things that we ought to be doing. And the most culturally similar and geographically cozy one is so close we can touch it.U.S. America and U.S. Americans are ceding North American skiing's future to British Columbia. This is where virtually all of the continent's major resort development has occurred over the past three decades. Why do you suppose so many skiers from Washington State spend so much time at Whistler? Yes, it's the largest resort in North America, with knockout terrain and lots of snow. But Crystal and Stevens Pass and Baker all get plenty of snow and are large enough to give most skiers just about anything they need. What Whistler has that none of them do is an expansive pedestrian base village with an almost infinite number of ski-in, ski-out beds and places to eat, drink, and shop. A dense community in the mountains. That's worth driving four or more hours north for, even if you have to deal with the pain-in-the-ass border slowdowns to get there.This is not an accident, and Whistler is not an outlier. Over the past 30-plus years, the province of British Columbia has deliberately shaped its regulatory environment and developmental policies to encourage and lubricate ski resort evolution and growth. While all-new ski resort developments often stall, one small ski area after another has grown from community bump to major resort over the past several decades. Tiny Mount Mackenzie became titanic Revelstoke, which towers over even mighty Whistler. Backwater Whitetooth blew upward and outward into sprawling, ferocious Kicking Horse. Little Tod Mountain evolved into Sun Peaks, now the second-largest ski area in Canada. While the resort has retained its name over the decades, the transformation of Panorama has been just as thorough and dramatic.Meanwhile, in America, we stagnate. Every proposed terrain expansion or transit alternative or housing development crashes headfirst into a shredder of bureaucratic holdups, lawsuits, and citizen campaigns. There are too many ways to stop things, and too many people whose narrow visions of what the world ought to be blockade the sort of wholesale rethinking of community architecture that would make the mountains more livable and accessible.This has worked for a while. It's still sort of working now. But each year, as the same two companies sell more and more passes to access a relatively stable number of U.S. ski areas, the traffic, liftlines, and cost of visiting these large resorts grows. Locals will find a way, pick their spots. But destination skiers with a menu of big-mountain options will eventually realize that I-70 is not a mandatory obstacle to maneuver on a good ski vacation. They can head north, instead, with the same ski pass they already have, and spend a week at Red or Fernie or Kimberley or Revelstoke or Sun Peaks or Kicking Horse.Or Panorama. Three thousand acres, 4,265 vertical feet, no lines, and no hassle getting there other than summoning the patience to endure long drives down Canadian two-laners. As the U.S. blunders along, Canada kept moving. The story of Panorama shows us how.What we talked aboutA snowmaking blitz; what happened when Panorama joined the Ikon Pass; how Covid savaged the international skier game; Panorama in the ‘80s; Intrawest arrives; a summit lift at last; village-building; reviving Mt. Baldy, B.C.; Mont Ste. Marie and learning French; why Intrawest sold the ski area; modernizing the lift system; busy busy Copper; leaving for Kicking Horse; Resorts of the Canadian Rockies arrives; who owns Panorama; whether the resort will stay independent; potential lift replacements and terrain expansions; could we ever see a lift in Taynton Bowl?; explaining those big sections of the trailmap that are blocked off with purple borders; and whitebark pine conservation.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewIt wouldn't be fair to call Panorama a Powder Highway sleeper. The place seems to be doing fine as a business, with plenty of skier traffic to support continuous expansive infrastructure upgrades. But with lower average annual snowfall totals than Revy and Whitewater and Fernie and Red, Panorama does tend to get fewer shout-outs through the media and social media megaphones. It's Northstar to Palisades Tahoe, Keystone to A-Basin, Park City to the Cottonwoods: the less-snowy, less-intense neighbor that collects families in wholesome Build-A-Bear fashion.But Panorama is wrapping up its second full season on the Ikon Pass, and its second winter since Canada finally unlocked its Covid-era borders. What impact, if any, would those two developments have on Panorama's famously uncrowded slopes? Even if Colorad-Bro would never deign to turn his Subaru north, would Kansas Karl or North Dakota Norman load the kids into the minivan for something farther but less annoying?Not yet, it turns out. Or at least, not in great enough numbers to wreck the place. But there is another angle to the Panorama story that intrigues me. Like Copper Mountain, Mountain Creek, and Whistler, Panorama once belonged to Intrawest. Unlike Winter Park, Steamboat, Stratton, and Snowshoe, they did not remain part of the enterprise long enough to live second lives as part of Alterra Mountain Company. But what if they had? Our big-mountain coalitions have somewhat ossified over these past half-dozen years, so that we think of ski areas as Ikon mountains or Epic mountains or Indy mountains or independent mountains. But these rosters, like the composition of sports teams or, increasingly, leagues, can fluctuate wildly over time. I do wonder how Whistler would look under Alterra and Ikon, or what impact Mountain Creek-as-unlimited-Ikon mountain would have had on the megapass market in New York City? We don't really know. But Panorama, as a onetime Intrawest mountain that rejoined the family through the backdoor with Ikon membership, does give us a sort-of in-between case, a kind of What If? episode of skiing.Which would be a fun thought experiment under any circumstances. But how cool to hear about the whole evolution from a guy who saw it all happen first-hand over the course of four decades? Who saw it from all levels and from all angles, who knew the players and who helped push the boulder uphill himself? That's increasingly rare with big mountains, in this era of executive rotations and promotions, to get access to a top leader in possession of institutional knowledge that he himself helped to draft. It was, I'm happy to say, as good as I'd hoped.What I got wrongI said that Panorama was “one of the closest B.C. ski areas to the United States.” This is not quite right. While the ski area is just 100 or so miles from the international border, more than a dozen ski areas sit closer to the U.S., including majors such as Kimberley, Fernie, Whitewater, and Red Mountain.Why you should ski PanoramaLet's acknowledge, first of all, that Panorama has a few things working against it: it's more than twice as far from Calgary airport – most skiers' likely port of entry – than Banff and its trio of excellent ski areas; it's the least powdery major ski resort on the Powder Highway; and while the skiable acreage and vertical drop are impressive, skiers must ride three lifts and a Snowcat to lap much of the best terrain.But even that extra drive still gets you to the bump in under four hours on good roads – hardly an endurance test. Sure, they get more snow in Utah, but have you ever been in Utah on a powder day? Enjoy that first untracked run, because unless you're a local who knows exactly where to go, it will probably be your only one. And lapping multiple lifts is more of a psychological exercise than a practical one when there are few to no liftlines.And dang the views when you get there:There are plenty of large, under-trafficked ski resorts remaining in the United States. But they tend to be hundreds of miles past the middle of nowhere, with 60-year-old chairlifts and little or no snowmaking, and nowhere to sleep other than the back of your van. In BC, you can find the best of America's Big Empties crossed with the modern lift fleets of the sprawling conglomerate-owned pinball machines. And oh by the way you get a hell of a discount off of already low-seeming (compared to the big-mountain U.S.) prices: an American dollar, as of April 16, was worth $1.38 Canadian.Podcast NotesOn IntrawestPanorama, as a former Intrawest-owned resort, could easily have been part of Alterra Mountain Company right now. Instead, it was one of several ski areas sold off in the years before the legacy company stuffed its remainders into the Anti-Vail:On Mont Ste. MarieMont Ste. Marie is one of approximately 45,000 ski areas in Quebec, and the only one, coincidentally, that I've actually skied. Paccagnan happened to be GM when I skied there, in 2002:On Kicking HorseIt's incredible how many U.S. Americans remain unaware of Kicking Horse, which offers what is probably the most ferocious inbounds ski terrain in North America, 4,314 vertical feet of straight down:Well, almost straight down. The bottom bit is fairly tame. That's because Kicking Horse, like many B.C. ski areas, began as a community bump and exploded skyward with an assist from the province. Here's what the ski area, then known as “Whitetooth,” looked like circa 1994:This sort of transformation happens all the time in British Columbia, and is the result of a deliberate, forward-looking development philosophy that has mostly evaporated in the U.S. American West.On the Powder HighwayPanorama lacks the notoriety of its Powder Highway size-peers, mostly because the terrain is overall a bit milder and the volume of natural snow a bit lower than many of the other ski areas. Here's a basic Powder Highway map:And a statistical breakdown:On the Lake Louise PassI already covered this one in my podcast with Red Mountain CEO Howard Katkov a couple months back:Katkov mentions the “Lake Louise Pass,” which Red participates in, along with Castle Mountain and Panorama. He's referring to the Lake Louise Plus Card, which costs $134 Canadian up front. Skiers then get their first, fourth, and seventh days free, and 20 percent off lift tickets for each additional visit. While these sorts of discount cards have been diminished by Epkon domination, versions of them still provide good value across the continent. The Colorado Gems Card, Smugglers' Notch's Bash Badge, and ORDA's frequent skier cards are all solid options for skiers looking to dodge the megapass circus.On Panorama's masterplan:On Mt. Baldy, B.C.Paccagnan helped revitalize a struggling Mt. Baldy, British Columbia, in the 1990s. Here was the ski area's 1991 footprint:And here's what it looks like today – the ski area joined Indy Pass for the 2023-24 ski season:On Panorama's evolutionPanorama, like many B.C. ski areas, has evolved significantly over the past several decades. Here's what the place looked like in 1990, not long after Paccagnan started and before Intrawest bought the place. A true summit lift was still theoretical, Taynton Bowl remained out of bounds, and the upper-mountain lifts were a mix of double chairs and T-bars:By 1995, just two years after Intrawest had purchased the ski area, the company had installed a summit T-bar and opened huge tracts of advanced terrain off the top of the mountain:The summit T ended up being a temporary solution. By 2005, Intrawest had thoroughly modernized the lift system, with a sequence of high-speed quads out of the base transporting skiers to the fixed-grip Summit Quad. Taynton Bowl became part of the marked and managed terrain:On Whitebark Pine certificationA bit of background on Panorama's certification as a “whitebark pine-friendly ski resort” – from East Kootenay News Online Weekly:The Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation of Canada has certified Panorama Mountain Resort as a Whitebark Pine Friendly Ski Area, the first resort in Canada to receive this designation.The certification recognizes the resort's long and continued efforts to support the recovery of whitebark pine within its ski area boundary, a threatened tree species that plays a critical role in the biodiversity of mountain ecosystems. ,,,Found across the subalpine of interior B.C., Alberta and parts of the U.S, this slow growing, five needle pine is an integral part of an ecosystem that many other species depend on for survival. The tree's cones hold some of the most nutritious seeds in the mountains and sustain Grizzly bears and birds, including the Clark's nutcracker which has a unique symbiotic relationship with the tree. The deep and widespread roots of the whitebark pine contribute to the health of watersheds by stabilizing alpine slopes and regulating snowpack run-off.Over the past decade, whitebark pine numbers have fallen dramatically due in large part to a non-native fungal disease known as white pine blister rust that has been infecting and killing the trees at an alarming rate. Since 2012, the whitebark pine has been listed as endangered under the Government of Canada's Species at Risk Act (SARA), and was recently added to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service's threatened species list.Panorama Mountain Resort has collaborated with the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation of Canada to facilitate restoration projects including cone collection and tree plantings within the resort's ski area.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 31/100 in 2024, and number 531 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Podcast #163: Red Mountain CEO & Chairman Howard Katkov

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2024 99:11

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Feb. 28. It dropped for free subscribers on March 6. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription (on sale at 15% off through March 12, 2024). You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoHoward Katkov, Chairman and CEO of Red Mountain Resort, British ColumbiaRecorded onFeb. 8, 2024About Red MountainClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Red Mountain VenturesLocated in: Rossland, British Columbia, CanadaYear founded: 1947 (beginning of chairlift service)Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 7 days, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass and Ikon Base Pass Plus: 5 days, holiday blackouts* Lake Louise Pass (described below)Closest neighboring ski areas: Salmo (:58), Whitewater (1:22), Phoenix Mountain (1:33), 49 Degrees North (1:53)Base elevation: 3,887 feet/1,185 metersSummit elevation: 6,807 feet/2,075 metersVertical drop: 2,919 feet/890 metersSkiable Acres: 3,850Average annual snowfall: 300 inches/760 cmTrail count: 119 (17% beginner, 34% intermediate, 23% advanced, 26% expert)Lift count: 8 (2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 1 double, 1 T-bar, 1 carpet)View historic Red Mountain trailmaps on skimap.org. Here are some cool video overviews:Granite Mountain:Red Mountain:Grey Mountain:Rossland:Why I interviewed himIt's never made sense to me, this psychological dividing line between Canada and America. I grew up in central Michigan, in a small town closer to Canada (the bridge between Sarnia and Port Huron stood 142 miles away), than the closest neighboring state (Toledo, Ohio, sat 175 miles south). Yet, I never crossed into Canada until I was 19, by which time I had visited roughly 40 U.S. states. Even then, the place felt more foreign than it should, with its aggressive border guards, pizza at McDonald's, and colored currency. Canada on a map looks easy, but Canada in reality is a bit harder, eh?Red sits just five miles, as the crow flies, north of the U.S. border. If by some fluke of history the mountain were part of Washington, it would be the state's greatest ski area, larger than Crystal and Stevens Pass combined. In fact, it would be the seventh-largest ski area in the country, larger than Mammoth or Snowmass, smaller only than Park City, Palisades, Big Sky, Vail, Heavenly, and Bachelor.But, somehow, the international border acts as a sort of invisibility shield, and skiing Red is a much different experience than visiting any of those giants, with their dense networks of high-speed lifts and destination crowds (well, less so at Bachelor). Sure, Red is an Ikon Pass mountain, and has been for years, but it is not synonymous with the pass, like Jackson or Aspen or Alta-Snowbird. But U.S. skiers – at least those outside of the Pacific Northwest – see Red listed on the Ikon menu and glaze past it like the soda machine at an open bar. It just doesn't seem relevant.Which is weird and probably won't last. And right now Shoosh Emoji Bro is losing his goddamn mind and cursing me for using my platform focused on lift-served snowskiing to hype one of the best and most interesting and most underrated lift-served snowskiing operations in North America. But that's why this whole deal exists, Brah. Because most people ski at the same 20 places and I really think skiing as an idea and as an experience and as a sustainable enterprise will be much better off if we start spreading people out a bit more.What we talked aboutRed pow days; why Red amped up shuttle service between the ski area and Rossland and made it free; old-school Tahoe; “it is the most interesting mountain I've ever skied”; buying a ski area when you've never worked at a ski area; why the real-estate crash didn't bury Red like some other ski areas; why Katkov backed away from a golf course that he spent a year and a half planning at Red; why the 900 lockers at the dead center of the base area aren't going anywhere; housing and cost of living in Rossland; “we look at our neighborhood as an extension of our community of Rossland”; base area development plans; balancing parking with people; why and how Red Mountain still sells affordable ski-in, ski-out real estate; “our ethos is to be accessible for everybody”; whether we could ever see a lift from Rossland to Red; why Red conducted a crowd-funding ownership campaign and what they did with the money; Red's newest ownership partners; the importance of independence; “the reality is that the pass, whether it's the Epic or the Ikon Pass, has radically changed the way that consumers experience skiing”; why Red joined the Ikon Pass and why it's been good for the mountain; the Mountain Collective; why Red has no high-speed lifts and whether we could ever see one; no stress on a powder day; Red's next logical lift upgrades; potential lift-served expansions onto Kirkup, White Wolf, and Mt. Roberts; and the Powder Highway.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewMy full-scale assault of Canada, planned for 2023, has turned into more of an old-person's bus tour. I'm stopping at all the big sites, but I sure am taking my time, and I'm not certain that I'm really getting the full experience.Part of this echoes the realization centuries' of armies have had when invading Russia: damn this place is big. I'd hoped to quickly fold the whole country into the newsletter, as I'd been able to do with the Midwest and West when I expanded The Storm's coverage out of the Northeast in 2021. But I'd grown up in the Midwest and been skiing the West annually for decades. I'd underestimated how much that had mattered. I'd skied a bit in Canada, but not consistently enough to kick the door down in the manner I'd hoped. I started counting ski areas in Quebec and stopped when I got to 4,000*, 95 percent of which were named “Mont [some French word with numerous squiggly marks above the letters].” The measurements are different. The money is different. The language, in Quebec, is different. I needed to slow down.So I'm starting with western Canada. Well, I started there last year, when I hosted the leaders of SkiBig3 and Sun Peaks on the podcast. This is the easiest Canadian region for a U.S. American to grasp: Epic, Ikon, Mountain Collective, and Indy Pass penetration is deep, especially in British Columbia. Powdr, Boyne, Vail, and Pacific Group Resorts all own ski areas in the province. There is no language barrier.So, Red today, Panorama next month, Whistler in June. That's the way the podcast calendar sets up now, anyway. I'll move east as I'm able.But Red, in particular, has always fascinated me. If you're wondering what the largest ski area in North America is that has yet to install a high-speed lift, this is your answer. For many of you, that may be a deal-breaker. But I see a time-machine, an opportunity to experience a different sort of skiing, but with modern gear. Like if aliens were to land on today's Earth with their teleportation devices and language-translation brain chips and standard-issue post-industro-materialist silver onesies. Like wow look how much easier the past is when you bring the future with you.Someday, Red will probably build a high-speed lift or two or four, and enough skiers who are burned out on I-70 and LCC but refuse to give up their Ikon Passes will look north and say, “oh my, what's this all about?” And Red will become some version of Jackson Hole or Big Sky or Whistler, beefy but also busy, remote but also accessible. But I wanted to capture Red, as it is today, before it goes away.*Just kidding, there are actually 12,000.^^OK, OK, there are like 90. Or 90,000.Why you should ski Red MountainLet's say you've had an Ikon Pass for the past five or six ski seasons. You've run through the Colorado circuit, navigated the Utah canyons, circled Lake Tahoe. The mountains are big, but so are the crowds. The Ikon Pass, for a moment, was a cool little hack, like having an iPhone in 2008. But then everyone got them, and now the world seems terrible because of it.But let's examine ye ‘ole Ikon partner chart more closely, to see what else may be on offer:What's this whole “Canada” section about? Perhaps, during the pandemic, you resigned yourself to U.S. American travel. Perhaps you don't have a passport. Perhaps converting centimeters to inches ignites a cocktail of panic and confusion in your brain. But all of these are solvable dilemmas. Take a deeper look at Canada.In particular, take a deeper look at Red. Those stats are in American. Meaning this is a ski area bigger than Mammoth, taller than Palisades, snowy as Aspen. And it's just one stop on a stacked Ikon BC roster that also includes Sun Peaks (Canada's second-largest ski area), Revelstoke (the nation's tallest by vertical drop), and Panorama.We are not so many years removed from the age of slow-lift, empty American icons. Alta's first high-speed lift didn't arrive until 1999 (they now have four). Big Sky's tin-can tram showed up in 1995. A 1994 Skiing magazine article described the then-Squaw Valley side of what is now Palisades Tahoe as a pokey and remote fantasyland:…bottomless steeps, vast acreage, 33 lifts and no waiting. America's answer to the wide-open ski circuses of Europe. After all these years the mountain is still uncrowded, except on weekends when people pile in from the San Francisco Bay area in droves. Squaw is unflashy, underbuilt, and seems entirely indifferent to success. The opposite of what you would expect one of America's premier resorts to be.Well that's cute. And it's all gone now. America still holds its secrets, vast, affordable fixed-grip ski areas such as Lost Trail and Discovery and Silver Mountain. But none of them have joined the Ikon Pass, and none gives you the scale of Red, this glorious backwater with fixed-grip lifts that rise 2,400 vertical feet to untracked terrain. Maybe it will stay like this forever, but it probably won't. So go there now.Podcast NotesOn Red's masterplanRed's masterplan outlines potential lift-served expansions onto Kirkup, White Wolf, and Mount Roberts. We discuss the feasibility of each. Here's what the mountain could look like at full build-out:On Jane CosmeticsAn important part of Katkov's backstory is his role as founder of Jane cosmetics, a ‘90s bargain brand popular with teenagers. He built the company into a smash success and sold it to Estée Lauder, who promptly tanked it. Per Can't Hardly Dress:Lauder purchased the company in 1997. Jane was a big deal for Lauder because it was the company's first mass market drugstore brand. Up until that point, Lauder only owned prestige brands like MAC, Clinique, Jo Malone and more. Jane was a revolutionary move for the company and a quick way to enter the drugstore mass market.Lauder had no clue what do with Jane and sales plummeted from $50 million to $25 million by 2004. Several successive sales and relaunches also failed, and, according to the article above, “As it stands today, the brand is dunzo. Leaving behind a default Shopify site, an Instagram unupdated for 213 weeks and a Facebook last touched three years ago.”On Win Smith and SugarbushKatkov's story shares parallels with that of Win Smith, the Wall-Streeter-turned-resort-operator who nurtured Sugarbush between its days as part of the American Skiing Company shipwreck and its 2019 purchase by Alterra. Smith joined me on the podcast four years ago, post-Alterra sale, to share the whole story.On housing in Banff and Sun PeaksCanadian mountain towns are not, in general, backed up against the same cliff as their American counterparts. This is mostly the result of more deliberate regional planning policies that either regulate who's allowed to live where, or allow for smart growth over time (meaning they can build things without 500 lawsuits). I discussed the former model with SkiBig3 (Banff) President Pete Woods here, and the latter with Sun Peaks GM Darcy Alexander here. U.S. Americans could learn a lot from looking north.On not being able to buy slopeside real estate in Oregon, Washington, or California The Pacific Northwest is an extremely weird ski region. The resorts are big and snowy, but unless you live there, you've probably never visited any of them. As I wrote a few weeks back:Last week, Peak Rankings analyzed the matrix of factors that prevent Oregon and Washington ski areas, despite their impressive acreage and snowfall stats, from becoming destination resorts. While the article suggests the mountains' proximity to cities, lousy weather, and difficult access roads as blockers, just about every prominent ski area in America fights some combination of these circumstances. The article's most compelling argument is that, with few exceptions, there's really nowhere to stay on most of the mountains. I've written about this a number of times myself, with this important addendum: There's nowhere to stay on most of the mountains, and no possibility of building anything anytime soon.The reasons for this are many and varied, but can be summarized in this way: U.S. Americans, in thrall to an environmental vision that prizes pure wilderness over development of any kind, have rejected the notion that building dense, human-scaled, walkable mountainside communities would benefit the environment far more than making everyone drive to skiing every single day. Nowhere has this posture taken hold more thoroughly than in the Pacific Northwest.Snowy and expansive British Columbia, perhaps sensing a business opportunity, has done the opposite, streamlining ski resort development through a set of policies known as the B.C. Commercial Alpine Ski Policy. As a result, ski areas in the province have rapidly expanded over the past 30 years…California is a very different market, with plenty of legacy slopeside development. It tends to be expensive, however, as building anything new requires a United Nations treaty, an act of Jesus, and a total eclipse of the sun in late summer of a Leap Year. Perhaps 2024 will be it.On “Fight The Man, Own the Mountain”Red ran a crowd-funding campaign a few years back called “Fight the Man, Own the Mountain.” We discuss this on the pod, but here is a bit more context from a letter Katkov wrote on the subject:Investing in RED means investing in history, independence, and in this growing family that shares the same importance on lifestyle and culture. RED is the oldest ski resort in Western Canada and it has always been fiercely independent. There are not many, if any ski resorts left in North America like Red and the success of our campaign demonstrates a desire by so many of you to, help, in a small way, to protect the lifestyle, soul and ski culture that emanates from Red.RED is a place I've been beyond proud to co-own and captain since 2004 and the door is still open to share that feeling and be a part of our family. But please note that despite the friendly atmosphere, this is one of the Top 20 resorts in North America in terms of terrain. The snow's unreal and the people around here are some of the coolest, most down-to-earth folks you're ever likely to meet. (Trying to keep up with them on the hill is another thing entirely…)With $2 million so far already committed and invested, we wasted no time acting on promised improvements. These upgrades included a full remodel of fan favorite Paradise Lodge (incl. flush toilets!) as well as the expansion of RED's retail and High Performance centres. This summer we'll see the construction of overnight on-mountain cabins and the investor clubhouse (friends welcome!) as well as continued parking expansion. We've heard from a number of early investors that they were beyond stoked to enjoy the new Paradise Lodge so soon after clicking the BUY button. Hey, ownership has its privileges…On the Lake Louise PassKatkov mentions the “Lake Louise Pass,” which Red participates in, along with Castle Mountain and Panorama. He's referring to the Lake Louise Plus Card, which costs $134 Canadian up front. Skiers then get their first, fourth, and seventh days free, and 20 percent off lift tickets for each additional visit. While these sorts of discount cards have been diminished by Epkon domination, versions of them still provide good value across the continent. The Colorado Gems Card, Smugglers' Notch's Bash Badge, and ORDA's frequent skier cards are all solid options for skiers looking to dodge the megapass circus.On the Powder HighwayRed is the closest stop on the Powder Highway to U.S. America. This is what the Powder Highway is:And here's the circuit:Fairmont is just a little guy, but Kicking Horse, Kimberley, and Fernie are Epic Pass partners owned by Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, and Revy, Red, and Panorama are all on Ikon. Whitewater used to be on M.A.X. Pass, but is now pass-less. Just to the west of this resort cluster sits Big White (Indy), Silver Star (Ikon), and Sun Peaks (Ikon). To their east is Sunshine, Lake Louise, Norquay (all Ikon), and Castle (Indy). There are also Cat and heli-ski operations all over the place. You could lose a winter here pretty easily.On Katkov's business backgroundIn this episode of the Fident Capital Podcast, Katkov goes in-depth on his business philosophy and management style. Here's another:On bringing the city to the mountainsWhile this notion, rashly interpreted, could summon ghastly visions of Aspen-esque infestations of Fendi stores in downtown Rossland, it really just means building things other than slopeside mansions with 19 kitchens and a butler's wing. From a 2023 resort press release:Red Development Company, the real estate division of RED Mountain Resort (RED), in conjunction with ACE Project Marketing Group (ACE), recently reported the sell-out of the resort's latest real estate offering during the season opening of the slopes. On offer was The Crescent at RED, a collection of 102 homes, ranging from studio to one bedrooms and lofts featuring a prime ski in – ski out location. Howard Katkov, CEO of RED, and Don Thompson, RED President, first conceived of bringing the smaller urban living model to the alpine slopes in January 2021. ACE coined the concept as "everything you need and nothing you don't" …An important component was ensuring that the price point for The Crescent was accessible to locals and those who know and love the destination. With prices starting mid $300s – an excellent price when converted to USD – and with an achievable 5% deposit down, The Crescent at RED was easily one of the best value propositions in real estate for one of the best ranked ski resorts in North America. Not surprisingly, over 50% of the Crescent buyers were from the United States, spurred on by the extraordinary lifestyle and value offered by The Crescent, but also the new sparsity of Canadian property available to foreign buyers.As a good U.S. American, I ask Katkov why he didn't simply price these units for the one-percenters, and how he managed the House-Flipping Henries who would surely interpret these prices as opportunity. His answers might surprise you, and may give you hope that a different sort of ski town is possible.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 15/100 in 2024, and number 515 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

united states america jesus christ ceo american california canada europe earth man washington americans french canadian west colorado russia michigan ohio leaving north america oregon investing iphone bachelor meaning utah pass epic mountain mcdonald fight discovery mt midwest mac cat united nations base roberts lift british columbia pacific northwest northeast quebec shopify usd toledo high performance panorama someday skiing mont salmo mammoths lake tahoe resorts jackson hole park city san francisco bay tahoe whistler closest vail western canada notch snowy big sky leap year skiers banff smugglers crescent whitewater lauder clinique palisades fendi fairmont ikon canadian rockies white wolf lcc brah sarnia boyne fernie lake louise revelstoke squaw valley port huron jo malone red mountain squaw revy degrees north snowmass orda don thompson silver mountain alterra wall streeter sun peaks rossland palisades tahoe epic pass stevens pass kicking horse backgroundin

Kicking Horse Golden Pro RECAP | FWT24 - Stop #2

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2024 70:57

The second event of the FWT season saw the tour return to Canada at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, BC Canada. The comp couldn't be held on the OZONE face as intended due to poor conditions and was switched to T1 South, the same face as 2022. As expected the riders did their thing including another level unlocked by a Ski Women's competitor. 0:00 - Snow Conditions / Sit Skier forerunner Jay Rawe / Mark was the live event MC / No Rushing through the weather window. 13:00 -Snowboard Women 22:44 - Snowboard Men 33:54 - Ski Women 47:40 - Ski Men 1:05:43 - Next Up, Georgia Pro ----- Watch this episode of THE FREERIDE GUIDE on YouTube - https://youtu.be/NiOqHQ9v-nQ Follow on Instagram @thefreerideguide @red_mark @dfoose About the Hosts: Mark Warner is the producer and host the Low Pressure Podcast: The Podcast for Skiers. Derek Foose is the FWT Broadcast Announcer and Head Coach at Whistler Freeride Club and both are huge Freeride Fans. Please help us grow so go hit that Follow button!

canada horses golden head coach skiing ozone snowboarding skiers next up bc canada freeride world tour fwt kicking horse

Edur Gorospe, marketing de Head. Noticias y previa del FWT Canadá.

Cota Zero

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2024 103:30

Entrevista a Edur Gorospe, freerider de corazón y responsable de marketing de Head para España. Todas las preguntas que tengáis sobre material podéis dejarlas por el chat. Repasaremos las últimas novedades del Freeride World Tour en la prueba de Kicking Horse en Golden, Canadá y analizaremos la cara de la competición. Además repasaremos el tiempo y las noticias de la Copa del Mundo de alpino.

head marketing golden espa mundo adem entrevista todas noticias copa canad repasaremos freeride world tour kicking horse

UPDATE: FWT24 Injuries and Wildcards at Kicking Horse Golden BC Pro

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2024 32:56

Stan Rey has been announced as a Wildcard! Mark and Derek are discussing the Injury and Wildcard updates coming from the FWT ahead of the Kicking Horse Golden Pro event next week. We've learned that Simon Perraudin and Taylor Dobbins have been forced to withdrawal because of injury. Due to personal reasons, Justine Dufour Lapointe won't be competing at her home event in Canada this year. Mark meets up with Stan on Whistler Blackcomb for a chairlift chat about what he expects from the event and if he thinks he's ready. He even has some important news of his own! Stan was showing fellow Ski Men's competitor, Tenra Katsuno, around the mountain and we also chat with Tenra to help you get to know him better heading into Kicking Horse. 0:00 - Injury / Wildcard Update 7:49 - Stan Rey Interview 23:42 - Tenra Katsuno Interview We want to hear from you! Send in your comments and questions to the BACKSLAP Segment backslap@freerideguidepodcast.com Follow The Freeride Guide on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thefreerideguide/ ---------- About the Hosts: Mark Warner is the Host of the ski industry's first podcast, Low Pressure Podcast: The Podcast for Skiers. Derek Foose is the FWT broadcast announcer, Founder and Head Coach of the Whistler Freeride Club and both are huge Freeride Fans Please help us grow so go hit that Follow button! #freerideguide #listentoskiing The Freeride Guide is part of the Low Pressure Podcast Network and is a RedMark Media Production.

founders canada horses golden injury injuries head coach wild card skiing snowboarding wild cards skiers whistler blackcomb fwt kicking horse justine dufour lapointe

Podcast #159: Big Sky General Manager Troy Nedved

The White Out - Ski Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 23, 2024 78:26

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Jan. 16. It dropped for free subscribers on Jan. 23. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoTroy Nedved, General Manager of Big Sky, MontanaRecorded onJanuary 11, 2024About Big SkyClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Boyne ResortsLocated in: Big Sky, MontanaYear founded: 1973Pass affiliations:* 7 days, no blackouts on Ikon Pass (reservations required)* 5 days, holiday blackouts on Ikon Base and Ikon Base Plus Pass (reservations required)* 2 days, no blackouts on Mountain Collective (reservations required)Reciprocal partners: Top-tier Big Sky season passes include three days each at Boyne's other nine ski areas: Brighton, Summit at Snoqualmie, Cypress, Boyne Mountain, The Highlands, Loon Mountain, Sunday River, Pleasant Mountain, and Sugarloaf.Closest neighboring ski areas: Yellowstone Club (ski-to connection); Bear Canyon (private ski area for Mount Ellis Academy – 1:20); Bridger Bowl (1:30)Base elevation: 6,800 feet at Madison BaseSummit elevation: 11,166 feetVertical drop: 4,350 feetSkiable Acres: 5,850Average annual snowfall: 400-plus inchesTrail count: 300 (18% expert, 35% advanced, 25% intermediate, 22% beginner)Terrain parks: 6Lift count: 38 (1 75-passenger tram, 1 high-speed eight-pack, 3 high-speed six-packs, 4 high-speed quads, 3 fixed-grip quads, 9 triples, 5 doubles, 3 platters, 1 ropetow, 8 carpet lifts – Big Sky also recently announced a second eight-pack, to replace the Six Shooter six-pack, next year; and a new, two-stage gondola, which will replace the Explorer double chair for the 2025-26 ski season – View Lift Blog's inventory of Big Sky's lift fleet.)View vintage Big Sky trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himBig Sky is the closest thing American skiing has to the ever-stacking ski circuses of British Columbia. While most of our western giants labor through Forest Service approvals for every new snowgun and trail sign, BC transforms Revelstoke and Kicking Horse and Sun Peaks into three of the largest ski resorts on the continent in under two decades. These are policy decisions, differences in government and public philosophies of how to use our shared land. And that's fine. U.S. America does everything in the most difficult way possible, and there's no reason to believe that ski resort development would be any different.Except in a few places in the West, it is different. Deer Valley and Park City and Schweitzer sit entirely (or mostly), on private land. New project approvals lie with local entities. Sometimes, locals frustrate ski areas' ambitions, as is the case in Park City, which cannot, at the moment, even execute simple lift replacements. But the absence of a federal overlord is working just fine at Big Sky, where the mountain has evolved from Really Good to Damn Is This Real in less time than it took Aspen to secure approvals for its 153-acre Hero's expansion.Boyne has pulled similar stunts at its similarly situated resorts across the country: Boyne Mountain and The Highlands in Michigan and Sunday River in Maine, each of them transforming in Hollywood montage-scene fashion. Progress has lagged more at Brighton and Alpental, both of which sit at least partly on Forest Service land (though change has been rapid at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, whose land is a public-private hybrid). But the evolution at Big Sky has been particularly comprehensive. And, because of the ski area's inherent drama and prominence, compelling. It's America's look-what-we-can-do-if-we-can-just-do mountain. The on-mountain product is better for skiers and better for skiing, a modern mountain that eases chokepoints and upgrades facilities and spreads everyone around.Winter Park, seated on Forest Service land, owned by the City of Denver, and operated by Alterra Mountain Company, outlined an ambitious master development plan in 2005 (when Intrawest ran the ski area). Proposed projects included a three-stage gondola connecting the town of Winter Park with the ski area's base village, a massive intermediate-focused expansion onto Vasquez Ridge, and a new mid-mountain beginner area. Nearly 20 years later, none of it exists. Winter Park did execute some upgrades in the meantime, building a bunch of six-packs and adding lift redundancy and access to the high alpine. But the mountain's seven lift upgrades in 19 years are underwhelming compared to the 17 such projects that have remade Big Sky over that same time period. Winter Park has no lack of resources, skier attention, or administrative will, but its plans stall anyway, and it's no mystery why.I write more about Big Sky than I do about other large North American ski resorts because there is more happening at Big Sky than at any other large North American ski resort. That is partly luck and partly institutional momentum and partly a unique historical collision of macroeconomic, cultural, and technological factors that favor construction and evolution of what a ski resort is and can be. And, certainly, U.S. ski resorts build big projects on Forest Service land every single year. But Boyne and Big Sky, operating outside of the rulebooks hemming in their competitors, are getting to the future a hell of a lot faster than anyone else.What we talked aboutYes a second eight-pack is coming to Big Sky; why the resort is replacing the 20-year-old Six Shooter lift; potential future Headwaters lift upgrades; why the resort will replace Six Shooter before adding a second lift out of the Madison base; what will happen to Six Shooter and why it likely won't land elsewhere in Boyne's portfolio; the logic of selling, rather than scrapping, lifts to competitors; adjusting eight-packs for U.S. Americans; automated chairlift safety bars; what happened when the old Ramcharger quad moved to Shedhorn; what's up with the patrol sled marooned in a tree off Shedhorn?; the philosophy of naming lifts; why we won't see the Taco Bell tram anytime soon (or ever); the One & Only gondola; Big Sky's huge fleet of real estate lifts; how the new tram changed Big Sky; metering traffic up the Lone Peak tram; the tram's shift from pay-per-day to pay-per-ride; a double carpet; that new double-blue-square rating on the trailmap; Black Hills skiing at Terry Peak and Deer Mountain; working in Yellowstone; river kayaking culture; revisiting the coming out-of-base gondola; should Swifty have been an eight-pack?; on-mountain employee housing; Big Sky 2025; what does the resort that's already upgraded everything upgrade next?; potential future lift upgrades; and the Ikon Pass.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewI didn't plan to record two Big Sky podcasts in two months. I prefer to spread my attention across mountains and across regions and across companies, as most of you know. This podcast was scheduled for early December, after an anticipated Thanksgiving-week tram opening. But then the tram was delayed, and as it happened I was able to attend the grand opening on Dec. 19. I recorded a podcast there, with Nedved and past Storm Skiing Podcast guests Taylor Middleton (Big Sky president) and Stephen Kircher (Boyne Resorts CEO).But Nedved and I kept this conversation on the calendar, pushing it into January. It's a good thing. Because no sooner had Big Sky opened its spectacular new tram than it announced yet another spectacular new lift: a second eight-pack chair, to replace a six-pack that is exactly 21 years old.There's a sort of willful showiness to such projects. Who, in America, can even afford a six-person chairlift, let alone have the resources to tag such a machine for the rubbish bin? And then replace it with a lift so spectacular that its ornamentation exceeds that of your six-year-old Ramcharger eight-seater, still dazzling on the other side of the mountain?When Vail built 18 new lifts in 2022, the projects ended up as all function, no form. They were effective, and well-placed, but the lifts are just lifts. Boyne Resorts, which, while a quarter the size of Vail, has built dozens of new lifts over the past decade, is building more than just people-movers. Its lifts are experiences, housed in ski shrines, buildings festooned in speakers and screens, the carriers descending like coaster trains at Six Flags, bubbles and heaters and sportscar seats and conveyors, a spectacle you might ride even if skiing were not attached at the end.American skiing will always have room for throwbacks and minimalism, just as American cuisine will always have room for Taco Bell and small-town diners. Most Montana ski areas are fixed-grip and funky – Snowbowl and Bridger and Great Divide and Discovery and Lost Trail and Maverick and Turner. Big Sky's opportunity was, at one time, to be a bigger, funkier version of these big, funky ski areas. But its opportunity today is to be the not-Colorado, not-Utah alt destination for skiers seeking comfort sans megacrowds. The mountain is fulfilling that mission, at a speed that is almost impossible to believe. Which is why we keep going back there, over and over again.What I got wrongI said several times that the Six Shooter lift was “only 20 years old.” In fact, Moonlight installed the lift in 2003, making the machine legal drinking age.Why you should ski Big SkyThe approach is part of the experience, always. Some ski areas smash the viewshed with bandoliers of steepshots slicing across the ridge. From miles down the highway you say whoa. Killington or Hunter or Red Lodge. Others hide. Even from the parking lot you see only suggestions of skiing. Caberfae in Michigan is like this, enormous trees mask its runs and its peaks. Mad River Glen erupts skyward but its ragged clandestine trail network resembles nothing else in the East and you wonder where it is. Unfolding, then, as you explore. Even vast Heavenly, from the gondola base, is invisible.Big Sky, alone among American ski areas, inspires awe on the approach. Turn west up 64 from 191 and Lone Peak commands the horizon. This place is not like other places you realize. On the long road up you pass the spiderwebbing trails off the Lone Moose and Thunder Wolf lifts and still that summit towers in the distance. There is a way to get up there and a way to ski down but from below it's all invisible. All you can see is snow and rocks and avy chutes flushed out over millennia.That's the marquee and that's the post: I'm here. But Lone Peak, with its triple black diamonds and sign-in sheets and muscled exposure, is not for mortal hot laps. Go up, yes. Ski down, yes. But then explore. Because staple Keystone to Breck and you have roughly one Big Sky.Humans cluster. Even in vast spaces. Or perhaps especially so. The cut trails below Ramcharger and Swifty swarm like train stations. But break away from the salmon run, into the trees or the bowl or the gnarled runs below the liftlines, and emerge into a different world. Everywhere, empty lifts, empty glades, endless crags and crannies. Greens and blues that roll for miles. Beyond every chairlift, another chairlift. Stacked like bonus levels are what feel like mini ski areas existing for you alone. An empty endless. A skiing fantasyland.Podcast NotesOn Uncle Dan's CookiesFear not: this little shack seated beside the Six Shooter lift is not going anywhere:On Moonlight Basin and Spanish PeaksLike the largest (Park City) and second-largest (Palisades Tahoe) ski areas in America, Big Sky is the stapled-together remains of several former operations. Unlike those two giants, which connected two distinct ski areas with gondolas (Park City and Canyons; Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows), seamless ski connections existed between the former Spanish Peaks terrain, on the ski area's far southern end, and the former Moonlight Basin, on the northern end. The circa 2010 trailmaps called out access points between each of the bookend resorts and Big Sky, which you could ski with upgraded lift tickets:Big Sky purchased the properties in 2013, a few years after this happened (per the Bozeman Daily Chronicle):Moonlight Basin, meanwhile, got into trouble after borrowing $100 million from Lehman Brothers in September 2007, with the 7,800-acre resort, its ski lifts, condos, spa and a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course put up as collateral, according to foreclosure records filed in Madison County.That loan came due in September 2008, according to the papers filed by Lehman, and Moonlight defaulted. Lehman itself went bankrupt in September 2008 and blamed its troubles on a collapse in the real estate market that left it upside down.An outfit called Crossharbor Capital Partners, which purchased and still owns the neighboring Yellowstone Club, eventually joined forces with Big Sky to buy Moonlight and Spanish Peaks (Crossharbor is no longer a partner). Now, just imagine tacking the 2,900-acre Yellowstone Club onto Big Sky's current footprint (which you can in fact do if you're a Yellowstone Club member):On the sled chilling in the tree off ShedhornYes, there's a patrol sled lodged in a tree off the Shedhorn high-speed quad. Here's a pic I snagged from the lift last spring:Explore Big Sky last year recounted the avalanche that deposited the sled there:“In Big Sky and around Montana, ['96 and '97] has never been topped in terms of snowfall,” [veteran Big Sky ski patroller Mike] Buotte said. Unfortunately, a “killer ice layer on the bottom of the snowpack” caused problems in the tram's second season. On Christmas Day, 1996, a patroller died in an explosive accident near the summit of Lone Mountain. Buotte says it was traumatic for the entire team.The next morning, patrol triggered a “wall-to-wall” avalanche across Lenin and the Dictator Chutes. The slide infamously took out the Shedhorn chairlift, leaving scars still visible today. Buotte and another patroller were caught in that avalanche. Miraculously, they both stopped. Had they “taken the ride,” Buotte is confident they would not have survived.“That second year, the reality of what's going on really hit us,” Buotte said. “And it was not fun and games. It was pretty dark, frankly. That's when it got very real for the organization and for me. The industry changed; avalanche training changed. We had to up our game. It was a new paradigm.”Buotte said patrol changed the Lenin route's design—adding more separation in time and space—and applied the same learning to other routes. Mitigation work is inherently dangerous, but Buotte believes the close call helped emphasize the importance of route structure to reduce risk.Here's Boutte recalling the incident:On the Ski the Sky loopBig Sky gamified a version of their trailmap to help skiers understand that there's more to the mountain than Ramcharger and Swifty:On the bigness of Big SkyNedved points out that several major U.S. destination ski areas total less than half Big Sky's 5,850 acres. That would be 2,950 acres, which is, indeed, more than Breckenridge (2,908 acres), Schweitzer (2,900), Alta (2,614), Crystal (2,600), Snowbird (2,500), Jackson Hole (2,500), Copper Mountain (2,465), Beaver Creek (2,082), Sun Valley (2,054), Deer Valley (2,026), or Telluride (2,000).On the One & Only resort and brandWe discuss the One & Only resort company, which is building a super-luxe facility that they will connect to the Madison base with a D-line gondola. Which is an insane investment for a transportation lift. As far as I can tell, this will be the company's first facility in the United States. Here's a list of their existing properties.On the Big Sky TramI won't break down the new Lone Peak tram here, because I just did that a month ago.On the Black HillsSouth Dakota's Black Hills, where Nedved grew up, are likely not what most Americans envision when they think of South Dakota. It's a gorgeous, mountainous region that is home to Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse monument, and 7,244-foot Black Elk Peak (formerly Harney Peak), the highest point in the United States east of the Rockies. This is a tourist bureau video, but it will make you say wait Brah where are all the cornfields?The Black Hills are home to two ski areas. The first it Terry Peak, an 1,100-footer with three high-speed quads that is an Indy Pass OG:The second is Deer Mountain, which disappeared for around six years before an outfit called Keating Resources bought the joint last year and announced they would bring it back as a private ski area for on-mountain homeowners. They planned a large terrain reduction to accommodate more housing. I put this revised trailmap together last year based upon a conversation with the organization's president, Alec Keating:The intention, Keating told me in July, was to re-open the East Side (top of the map above), for this ski season, and the West side (bottom portion) in 2025. I've yet to see evidence of the ski area having opened, however.On Troy the athleteWe talk a bit about Nedved's kayaking adventures, but that barely touches on his action-sports resume. From a 2019 Explore Big Sky profile:Nedved lived in a teepee in Gardiner for two years down on the banks of the Yellowstone River across from the Yellowstone Raft Company, where he developed world-class abilities as a kayaker.“The culture around rafting and kayaking is pretty heavy and I connected with some of the folks around there that were pretty into it. That was the start of that,” Nedved said of his early days in the park. “My Yellowstone days, I spent all my time when I was not working on the water.” And even when he was working, and someone needed to brave a stretch of Class V rapids for a rescue mission or body recovery, he was the one for the job.When Teton Gravity Research started making kayak movies, Nedved and his friends got the call as well. “We were pioneering lines that had never been done before: in Costa Rica and Nepal, but also stretches of river in Montana in the Crazy Mountains of Big Timber Creek and lots of runs in Beartooths that had never been floated,” Nedved recounted.“We spent a lot of time looking at maps, hiking around the mountains, finding stuff that was runnable versus not. It was a stage of kayaking community in Montana that we got started. Now the next generation of these kids is blowing my mind—doing things that we didn't even think was possible.”Nedved is an athlete's athlete. “I love competing in just about anything. When I was first in Montana, I found out about Powder 8s at Bridger Bowl. It was a cool event and we got into it,” he said in a typically modest way. “It was just another thing to hone your skills as a ski instructor and a skiing professional.”Nedved has since won the national Powder 8 competition five times and competed on ESPN at the highest level of the niche sport in the Powder 8 World Championships held at Mike Wiegele's heliskiing operation in Canada. Even some twenty years later, he is still finding podiums in the aesthetically appealing alpine events with longtime partner Nick Herrin, currently the CEO of the Professional Ski Instructors of America. Nedved credits his year-round athletic pursuits for what keeps him in the condition to still make perfect turns.Sadly, I was unable to locate any videos of Nedved kayaking or Powder 8ing.On employee housing at Big Sky and Winter ParkBig Sky has built an incredible volume of employee housing (more than 1,000 beds in the Mountain Village alone). The most impressive may be the Levinski complex: fully furnished, energy-efficient buildings situated within walking distance of the lifts.Big mountain skiing, wracked and wrecked by traffic and mountain-town housing shortages, desperately needs more of this sort of investment, as I wrote last week after Winter Park opened a similarly situated project.On Big Sky 2025Big Sky 2025 will, in substance, wrap when the new two-stage, out-of-base gondola opens next year. Here's the current iteration of the plan. You can see how much it differs from the version outlined in 2016 in this contemporary Lift Blog post.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 2/100 in 2024, and number 502 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

united states america ceo american canada thanksgiving hollywood americans west colorado michigan hero utah progress east espn humans discovery maine summit montana general managers costa rica base bc christmas day new hampshire north american british columbia nepal taco bell south dakota brighton explorers world championships mount rushmore yellowstone national park proposed moonlight rockies greens terrain really good ski unfolding powder lenin stacked highlands eastside keystone jackson hole park city six flags lehman lehman brothers closest mitigation vail keating great divide gardiner big sky cypress forest service jack nicklaus black hills crazy horse telluride breckenridge reciprocal madison county snowbirds canyons sun valley swifty winter park schweitzer brah breck beaver creek boyne headwaters sugarloaf revelstoke squaw valley six shooter killington deer valley yellowstone river red lodge snoqualmie copper mountain class v sun peaks sunday river lone peak mountain village palisades tahoe loon mountain crazy mountains lone mountain kicking horse professional ski instructors alterra mountain company mad river glen intrawest

S2. E2 British Columbia Special Bonus Edition

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 18, 2023 13:59

In this fantastic bonus episode, we chat with Squamish, BC resident Amber Turnau who tells us the ins and outs of the best ski resorts in British Columbia, Canada the massive province that we all know and love and home to some of the best ski resorts in the world. Beginning on the west coast, The resorts start at Vancouver Island's Mount Washington Alpine Resort. Then, as you make your way to the mainland, head up the fabulous Sea to Sky Highway to Whistler Blackcomb host venue for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. As you make your way inland to the Okanagan Region (one of BC's wine regions), you'll find the resorts Silver Star, Big White, Sun Peaks and Apex.Onto the south east corner of BC - The Kootenays, bordering the neighbouring province of Alberta are home to fabulous resorts that make up the Powder Highway like Fernie, Crossland (Red Mountain) Revelstoke, Panorama, Kicking Horse, and Kimberley.The resorts of BC are like nowhere on Earth and so worth the trip, it was great catching up with Amber and getting the inside track on axe throwing and graded tree runs, we can't wait to get back out there :)for more info: hellobc.com/ski@HelloBC”In the meantime Happy Skiing :). Please do leave a review it's the only way other like minded skiers get to find us! And don't forget to check us out on the following channels inthesnow.comyoutube.com/inthesnowmagfacebook.com/inthesnowinstagram.com/inthesnowand contact us with your suggestions for further episodes at hello@InTheSnow.com

Podcast #131: Sun Peaks VP & General Manager Darcy Alexander

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2023 73:14

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 13. It dropped for free subscribers on June 16. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoDarcy Alexander, Vice President and General Manager of Sun Peaks, British ColumbiaRecorded onMay 23, 2023About Sun PeaksClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Nippon Cable CompanyLocated in: Sun Peaks, British ColumbiaYear founded: 1961, as Tod MountainPass affiliations: Ikon Pass: 5 or 7 days; Mountain Collective: 2 daysReciprocal partners: 2 days at Silver StarClosest neighboring ski areas: Harper Mountain (58 minutes), Silver Star (2 hours, 20 minutes)Base elevation: 3,930 feetSummit elevation: 6,824 feetVertical drop: 2,894 feetSkiable Acres: 4,270Average annual snowfall: 237 inchesTrail count: 138 trails and 19 glades (32% advanced/expert, 58% intermediate, 10% beginner)Lift count: 13 (3 high-speed quads, 4 fixed-grip quads, 2 platters, 4 carpets - view Lift Blog's inventory of Sun Peaks' lift fleet) – Sun Peaks will build a fourth high-speed quad, West Bowl Express, in 2024Why I interviewed himBecause this freaking province, man. Twenty-nine ski areas with vertical drops over 1,000 feet. Fourteen soar beyond 2,000. Five cross the 3,000-foot mark. Four pass 4,000. And BC is home to the only two ski areas in North America that give you 5,000 or more vertical feet: Whistler and King Revelstoke. Thirteen BC bumps deliver 1,000-plus acres of terrain, and at least 20 load up on 200 inches or more of snow per season. Check these stats:British Columbia is like the Lamborghini dealership of skiing. Lots of power, lots of flash, lots of hot damn is that real? No duds. Nothing you'd be embarrassed to pick up a date in. A few community bumps, sure. But the BC Bros can stack their power towers – Big White, Fernie, Kicking Horse, Kimberley, Panorama, Red, Revelstoke, Silver Star, Sun Peaks, Whistler, and Whitewater – against any collection of ski areas anywhere on the planet and feel pretty good about winning that knife fight.And yet, even in this Seal Team Six of ski resorts, Sun Peaks looks heroic, epaulets and medals dangling from its dress blues. This is the second-largest ski area in Canada. Ponder that BC ski roster again to understand what that means: Sun Peaks gives you more acreage than anything on the famed Powder Highway, more than Revy or Red or Kicking Horse or Fernie. Turn north at Kamloops, east at Hefley Creek, and get lost at the end of the valley.But Sun Peaks' sheer size is less impressive than how the resort won those big-mountain stats. “British Columbia has probably the most progressive ski resort development policy in the world,” Alexander tells me in the podcast. When he arrived at the bump that was then called “Tod Mountain” in 1993, the place was three chairlifts and some surface movers serving a single peak:Over the next 30 years, Nippon Cable transformed the joint into a vast ski Narnia not only because they were willing to funnel vast capital into the hill, but because the BC government let them do it, under a set of rules known as the B.C. Commercial Alpine Ski policy. While inspiring, this is not an unusual ski area evolution tale for Western Canada. Compare the 10 largest BC ski areas today to the 10 largest in 1994:The acreage explosions at all but Whistler-Blackcomb (which at the time operated as independent ski areas), are astonishing. To underscore the point, check out the same years' comparison for the 10-largest U.S. ski areas:Certainly, the U.S. has seen some dramatic shuffling, especially as Vail and Alterra combined Canyons with Park City and Alpine Meadows with the ski area formerly known as Squaw Valley to form the megaresorts of Park City and Palisades Tahoe. That Big Sky didn't measure on the top 10 in 1994 – the tram didn't arrive until 1995 – is amazing. But the Western U.S., in 1994, was already home to legions of enormous ski resorts. That Heavenly, Mammoth, and Jackson Hole are the exact same size today as they were 29 years ago illustrates the difference between the two countries' attitudes toward ski resort expansion and development. Canada nurtures growth. The U.S. makes it as difficult as possible. Indeed, the reason Big Sky was able to ascend to monster status is that the resort sits entirely on private land, immunizing it from Forest Service bureaucracy and the endless public challenges that attend it.Sun Peaks is a case study in BC's development-friendly policies actualized. More important: the resort's evolution is a case study in smart, transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly development. Alexander explains in the podcast that the long-range goal has been to build not just walkable base villages, but a walkable community stretching from one end of the valley to the other. This is the point that's so often missed in the United States: not all growth and development is bad. The reckless, developer-driven, luxury-focused, disconnected sprawl that is U.S. America's default building mode is terrible and inhuman and ought to be curtailed. Deliberate, dense, interconnected, metered development based upon a community masterplan - which is what Sun Peaks is doing - should be encouraged.This sort of thoughtful growth does not dilute mountain communities. It creates them. Rather than trying to freeze development in time – a posture that only kicks sprawl ever farther out from the mountains and leads directly to the traffic addling so many Western U.S. ski towns – BC has enabled and empowered the sort of place-building that will create sustainable mountain communities over the long term. It's an inspiring model, and one that The Storm will examine intensely as I focus more deliberately on Canada.What we talked aboutRecord skier visits; bringing back that international vibe; touring Western Canada; Sun Peaks' first season on the Ikon Pass; the secret giant; how to dodge what few liftlines the resort has; the Mountain Collective as Ikon test run; Tod Mountain in the early 1990s; ski area masterplanning; Sunshine Village; growing Sun Peaks from backwater to the second-largest ski area in Canada; Nippon Cable, the Japanese lift manufacturer that owns Sun Peaks; why Sun Peaks doesn't use Nippon lifts; why Sun Peaks changed its name from “Tod Mountain” in 1993; an interesting tidbit about Whistler ownership; whether Sun Peaks ever considered joining the Epic Pass; Sun Peaks' masterplan; potential terrain expansions; upgrade potential for Sunburst and Sundance lifts; future lift additions; “the guy who serves the most ski terrain with the fewest lifts is the most efficient”; going deep on the coming West Bowl Express quad and the new terrain that will go along with it; why Sun Peaks retired the West Bowl T-bar before replacing it; better access to Gil's; why Sun Peaks is building the lift over three summers; the amazing Burfield lift, a fixed-grip quad that stretches nearly 3,000 vertical feet; potentially shortening that lift; why Burfield will likely never be a high-speed lift; prioritizing lift projects after West Bowl; converting – not replacing – Orient from a fixed-grip quad to a high-speed quad or six-pack; village-building; the potential major lift that's not on Sun Peaks' masterplan; and potentially connecting the resort to the Trans-Canada highway by paved road from the east.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewIn April, Sun Peaks announced construction of a new high-speed quad in West Bowl for the 2024-25 ski season. The lift will replace the West Bowl T-bar, visible on this circa 2019 trailmap, on a longer line that pushes the boundary away from the 7 Mile Road trail:The resort will lengthen the existing trails to meet the new lift's load point down the mountain, as Alexander explains in the podcast.This will be Sun Peaks' third new chairlift in three years, following new fixed-grip quads at Crystal and Orient in 2020 and 2018, respectively. Sun Peaks approaches chairlift construction in a unique manner, with a history of building lifts as fixed-grip machines and then upgrading them to high-speed lifts later on. Orient, for example, may evolve into a high-speed six-pack that lands several hundred more feet up the mountain. Slowly, deliberately, endlessly, Sun Peaks grows and evolves.While Alexander and his team continue to stack bricks into the resort's foundation, they simultaneously grow the mountain's profile. A few years back, the resort joined the Mountain Collective. Last October, it joined Ikon. And, kaboom: no more secret at the end of the road.That's a good thing. If these BC giants are to thrive, they're going to need help outside the province, which hosts a population of approximately 5 million in an area the size of California (39 million residents), Colorado (5.8 million), and Utah (3.4 million) combined. That means bringing skiers burned out on Summit County and Wasatch liftlines across the border, where big ski resorts continue to get bigger and the liftlines rarely form (outside of the West Coast).I don't want to overstate the scale of what's happening in BC – certainly big projects still can and do happen in America. And even as they grow fat by North American standards, most of the province's biggest ski areas still look like birdbaths compared to the ski circuses of Europe. But imagine if, over the next 30 years, 480-acre Ski Cooper transformed into 5,317-acre Vail Mountain. That is essentially what's happened at Sun Peaks since 1993, where a small community bump evolved into an international destination resort 10 times its original size. And they're nowhere near finished – Sun Peaks' masterplan (pg. 141), outlines a monster facility at full build-out:The Mountain Master Plan … will ultimately include a total of 26 ski lifts, including one pulse gondola, one 10G/8C Combi lift one detachable grip six-passenger chairlift, four detachable quadruple chairlifts, nine fixed grip quadruple chairlifts, four platter lifts and approximately two beginner moving carpet lifts, with a total combined rated capacity of about 41,186 passengers per hour … The overall Phase 4 [Skier Comfortable Carrying Capacity] will be approximately 14,830 skiers per day. … there will be 225 trails providing 177.5 kilometers of skiing on [1,895 acres] of terrain.Here's a conceptual map of Sun Peaks at full build-out:While plenty of BC ski areas have evolved over the past several decades, no one has accomplished the trick more steadily or with such deliberate, constant momentum as Sun Peaks. It was time to check in to see how they'd done it, and what was going to happen next.What I got wrongAs is my habit, I introduced Sun Peaks as defined by our U.S. American measurement system of feet and acres. Which is not that unusual – this is a U.S. American-based podcast. However, as a courtesy to my Canadian guests, listeners, and readers, I should have also offered the equivalent measurements in meters. Only I am a dumb U.S. American so I don't actually know how to do these conversions. Sorry about that.Why you should ski Sun PeaksThe Ikon Pass is an incredible thing. Purchase one in the spring and spend the following winter bouncing across the snowy horizons. Hit half a dozen of the continent's greatest resorts in Utah, big-mountain hop in Colorado, spend a week in Tahoe or skimming between peaks at Big Sky. Or go to Canada – 10 Ikon destinations sit in the northland, and seven of them crouch in a neat circle straddling BC and Alberta: Norquay, Lake Louise, Sunshine, Panorama, Red, Sun Peaks, and Revelstoke:You could complete that circle in around 17 hours of driving. Which is not much if you're rolling through a two-week roadie and spending two or three days at each resort. Some of them could occupy far more time. Sun Peaks can eat up a week pretty easily. But for the resort-hoppers among us, an Ikon or Mountain Collective pass includes days at Canada's second-largest ski area on its ready-to-eat buffet. Here's a look at every Canadian ski area that participates in a U.S.-based megapass:So the first reason to ski Sun Peaks is that you probably already have access to it. But there's something else – you can just go there and ski. As much as I love the ski resorts of Colorado and Utah, they are just too easy to access for too many people. That's great, but skiing in those powder holes requires a certain patience, an expectation of some kind of madness, a willingness to tweak the algorithm to see what combination of snowfall, open terrain, day of the week, and time of day yields the most open path between you and turns.That calculus is a little easier at Sun Peaks: just show up whenever you want and start skiing. Outside of Whistler, the big-mountain resorts of BC resemble the big-mountain resorts of the American West 40 years ago. Endless labyrinths of untamed terrain, no one to race off the ropeline. BC's collective ski resorts have evolved much faster than the market's realization that there is another set of Rocky Mountain resorts stacked on top of the Rocky Mountain resorts of U.S. America. That's a lot of terrain to roam. And all you need is a passport. Go get it.Podcast NotesOn building an alternate route into Sun Peaks from the eastMost visitors to Sun Peaks are going to spend some time traveling to the resort along the Trans-Canada Highway. Eastbound travelers will simply turn north at Kamloops and then right at Heffley Creek. Westbound travelers pass within five miles of the resort's southeast edge as they drive through Chase, but must continue toward Kamloops before turning toward Sun Peaks – nearly an hour and a half on clear roads. There is a mountain road, unpaved and impassable in wintertime (marked in yellow below), and long-simmering plans for an alternate, less death-defying paved path that could be open year-round (market in blue below). Alexander and I discussed this road, and he seemed optimistic that it will, eventually, get built. Given Sun Peaks' record of actualizing the improbable, I share his outlook. Here's a map of the whole mess:On Nippon Cable and WhistlerWhile Sun Peaks presents as an independent ski area, it is in fact part of a Japan-based conglomerate called Nippon Cable. This is primarily a lift manufacturer, but Nippon also owns a number of ski areas in Japan and 25 percent of Whistler (seriously). Read more about their properties here.On Big Bam ski areaAlexander mentions Big Bam ski area, which sits along the Pine River just west of the Alaska Highway and south of Fort St. John. Here's a homemade trailmap that someone codenamed “Skier72” posted on skimap.org, with the caption, “Approx. Trails at Big Bam. Made with Google Earth. Top lift is future quad chair, bottom lift is rope tow”:Big Bam is a volunteer-run, weekends-only organization with 180 feet of vert. You can follow them on Facebook (their last Instapost was in 2014). Alexander mentioned that the ski area had moved from its original location, though I couldn't find any information on the old hill. The place has had a rough go – it re-opened (I believe in the current location), in 2009, and was closed from 2016 to 2019 before turning the lifts on again. They seem desperate for a chairlift. If anyone knows more about the Big Bam story, please let me know.On Sun Peaks spare lift fleetAlexander notes that Sun Peaks “might have the least number of lifts for a resort of our size” on the continent. Indeed, the ski area has the third-fewest number of lifts among North America's 10 largest ski areas:On the Burfield chairliftStow this one for ski club trivia night: Sun Peaks is home to what is very likely the longest fixed-grip chairlift in the world. The Burfield quad rises 2,890 vertical feet on a 9,510-foot-long line. According to Lift Blog, ride time is 21 minutes, and the carriers are 115 feet apart. The lift's hourly capacity is just 470 riders – compare that to the Crystal fixed-grip quad right beside it, which can move up to 2,400 skiers per hour.The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 50/100 in 2023, and number 436 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

united states america american california canada europe japan canadian colorado japanese vice president north america utah phase west coast general managers base bc twenty north american lift british columbia compare endless sundance trails rocky mountains panorama gil lamborghini narnia ponder mammoths american west orient deliberate jackson hole park city tahoe whistler vail western canada big sky google earth forest service whitewater kamloops silver star canyons ikon eastbound nippon wasatch seal team six approx summit county sunburst fernie lake louise transcanada revelstoke squaw valley big white westbound revy fort st mile road trans canada highway whistler blackcomb alterra sun peaks alaska highway palisades tahoe epic pass pine river kicking horse

07x14 Entrevista a Chat GPT sobre el esquí, Freeride World Tour y más!!

Hablamos de Esquí

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2023 53:38

¡Hola, amigos! Aquí estamos con un nuevo capítulo de Hablamos de esquí, vuestro podcast de esquí y nieve. Hoy os traemos una entrevista muy loca: Chat GPT responde a nuestras preguntas sobre el esquí. ¿Cuánto sabrá esta inteligencia artificial de Open AI sobre el esquí? ¿Qué tal nos lo contará? ¿Será muy acertada o por el contrario divagará mucho? Aprovechamos que tenemos a esta Inteligencia Artificial con nosotros y nos atrevemos a preguntarle cosas como ¿por qué España no es una potencia mundial en el esquí? Una conversación muy interesante que nos aporta un punto de luz tanto al esquí, como nos ayuda a entender un poco más qué son y de qué son capaces las inteligencias artificiales. Pero también hablamos de la tercera prueba del Freeride World Tour, que se ha celebrado en Kicking Horse, Canadá. Allí ha participado Abel Moga, nuestro raider, que no ha logrado clasificarse para las próximas finales. Lo comentamos con Edu, 110% ski. Participa en Hablamos de esquí y dinos qué te ha parecido Chat GPT. ¿Deberíamos contar con ella como colaboradora habitual de nuestro podcast? Manda un audio al 682 73 44 05 y cuéntanos.

pero espa entrevista openai canad deber participa inteligencia artificial aprovechamos esqu freeride world tour kicking horse

FWT23 PODCAST Kicking Horse, Canada - Stop #3 RECAP

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2023 66:35

This the Full RECAP of the third stop of the FWT23 Season at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, Canada with Mark and co-host Derek Foose. 13:20 - Snowboard Men 19:33 - Ski Men 22:39 - Max Hitzig 43:03 - Ski Women 52:00 - Snowboard Women Join our FunBet FWT Fantasy League - https://peakperformance.pronosticgames.fr/ RedMark Media - https://linktr.ee/LowPressurePodcast

canada horses golden skiing snowboarding full recap freeride world tour kicking horse

Ep 60 SPECIAL Kicking Horse Spiral Tunnels

FAILUROLOGY

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 9, 2022 31:43

Engineering News – Manitou Incline (2:15) It's episode 60! This week we're talking about an engineering marvel, the Kicking Horse Spiral Tunnels (9:40). After looking at multiple locations for the railway across the Canadian Rockies (13:10), engineers landed on a path across the Big Hill (18:10). Due to the steep grade, accidents were unavoidable and the tunnels were built to make the route less steep (22:50). Check out our Patreon page for Mini Failure bonus episodes - https://www.patreon.com/failurology Photos/Sources/Summary from this episode - https://www.failurology.ca/ Ways to get in touch Twitter - https://twitter.com/failurology Email - thefailurologypodcast@gmail.com Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/company/failurology-podcast YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh1Buq46PYyxKbCDGTqbsDg

horses spiral tunnels canadian rockies kicking horse

Podcast #91: Snow Partners (Big Snow, Mountain Creek) CEO Joe Hession

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2022

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Paid subscribers receive thousands of extra words of content each month, plus all podcasts three days before free subscribers.WhoJoe Hession, CEO of Snow Partners, owners of Mountain Creek, Big Snow American Dream, Snowcloud, and Terrain Based LearningRecorded onJune 15, 2022About Mountain CreekLocated in: Vernon Township, New JerseyClosest neighboring ski areas: National Winter Activity Center, New Jersey (6 minutes); Mount Peter, New York (24 minutes); Campgaw, New Jersey (51 minutes); Big Snow American Dream (50 minutes)Pass affiliations: NoneBase elevation: 440 feetSummit elevation: 1,480 feetVertical drop: 1,040 feetSkiable Acres: 167Average annual snowfall: 65 inchesTrail count: 46Lift count: 9 (1 Cabriolet, 2 high-speed quads, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Mountain Creek’s lift fleet)About Big Snow American DreamLocated in: East Rutherford, New JerseyClosest neighboring ski areas: Campgaw, New Jersey (35 minutes); National Winter Activity Center, New Jersey (45 minutes); Mountain Creek, New Jersey (50 minutes); Mount Peter, New York (50 minutes)Pass affiliations: NoneVertical drop: 118 feetSkiable Acres: 4Average annual snowfall: 0 inchesTrail count: 4 (2 green, 1 blue, 1 black)Lift count: 4 (1 quad, 1 poma, 2 carpets - view Lift Blog’s of inventory of Big Snow American Dream’s lift fleet)Why I interviewed himTwenty-five years ago, Vail Resorts was known as “Vail Associates.” The company owned just two mountains: Vail and Beaver Creek, which are essentially right next door to each other in Eagle County, Colorado. The resorts were, as they are today, big, snowy, and fun. But they were not great businesses. Bankruptcy threatened. And the ski media – Skiing, Powder – was mostly dismissive. This was the dawn of the freeskiing era, and the cool kids were running the Circuit of Radness: Snowbird, Squaw, Mammoth, Jackson Hole, Whistler, the Powder Highway. Vail was for suburban dads from Michigan. Beaver Creek was for suburban dads from New York. If you wanted the good stuff, keep moving until you got to Crested Butte or Telluride. Vail was just another big Colorado ski resort, that happened to own another big Colorado ski resort, and that was it.Today, Vail is the largest ski company in history, with (soon to be) 41 resorts scattered across three continents. Its Epic Pass transformed and stabilized the industry. It is impossible to talk about modern lift-served North American skiing without talking about Vail Resorts.There was nothing inevitable about this. Pete Seibert, Vail’s founder, did not enter skiing with some snowy notion of Manifest Destiny. He just wanted to open a great ski resort. It was 18 years from Vail Mountain’s 1962 opening to the opening of Beaver Creek in 1980. It was nearly two more decades until Vail bought Keystone and Breck in 1997. It was 11 more years until the Epic Pass debuted, and a few more before anyone started to pay attention to it.What Snow Partners, led by Joe Hession, is doing right now has echoes of Vail 15 years ago. They are building something. Quietly. Steadily. Like trees growing in a forest. They rise slowly but suddenly they tower over everything.I’m not suggesting that Snow Partners will be the next Vail. That they will buy Revelstoke and Jackson Hole and Alta and launch the Ultimo Pass to compete with Epic and Ikon. What Snow Partners is building is different. Additive. It will likely be the best thing to ever happen to Vail or Alterra. Snow Partners is not digital cameras, here to crush Kodak. They are, rather, skiing’s Ben Franklin, who believed every community in America should have access to books via a lending library. In Snow Partners’ version of the future, every large city in America has access to skiing via an indoor snowdome.This will change everything. Everything. In profound ways that we can only now imagine. The engine of that change will be the tens of millions of potential new skiers that can wander into a Big Snow ski area, learn how to ski, and suddenly train their radar on the mountains. Texas has a population of around 29.5 million people. Florida has about 22 million. Georgia has around 11 million. Those 61.5 million people have zero in-state ski areas between them. They could soon have many. There are countless skiers living in these states now, of course, refugees from the North or people who grew up in ski families. But there are millions more who have never skied or even thought about it, but who would, given the option, at least try it as a novelty. And that novelty may become a hobby, and that hobby may become a lifestyle, and that lifestyle may become an obsession.As anyone reading this knows, there’s a pretty direct line between those first turns and the neverending lines rolling on repeat in your snow-obsessed brain. But you have to link those first couple turns. That’s hard. Most people never get there. And that’s where Big Snow, with its beginner zone loaded with instructors and sculpted terrain features – a system known as Terrain Based Learning – is so interesting. It not only gives people access to snow. It gives people a way to learn to love it, absent the broiling frustration of ropetows and ice and $500 private instructors. It’s a place that creates skiers.This – Big Snow, along with an industry-wide reorientation toward technology – is Hession’s vision. And it is impossible not to believe in his vision. Hession announces in this podcast that the company has secured funding to build multiple Big Snow ski areas within the foreseeable future. The combination of beginner-oriented slopes and simple, affordable packages has proven attractive even in New Jersey, where skiers have access to dozens of outdoor ski areas within a few hours’ drive. It makes money, and the business model is easily repeatable.Mountain Creek, where Hession began working as a parking lot attendant in his teens, is, he says, a passion project. The company is not buying anymore outdoor ski areas. But when Big Snows start minting new skiers by the thousands, and perhaps the millions, they may end up driving the most profound change to outdoor ski areas in decades.What we talked aboutThe nascent uphill scene at Mountain Creek; “most people don’t realize that this is what New Jersey looks like”; celebrating Big Snow’s re-opening; the three things everyone gets wrong about Big Snow; the night of the fire that closed the facility for seven months; how the fire started and what it damaged; three insurance companies walk into a bar…; why six weeks of work closed the facility for more than half a year; staying positive and mission-focused through multiple shutdowns at a historically troubled facility; New Jersey’s enormous diversity; skiing in Central Park?; “we’re creating a ski town culture in the Meadowlands in New Jersey”; everyone loves Big Snow; the story behind creating Big Snow’s beginner-focused business model; why most people don’t have fun skiing and snowboarding; the four kinds of fun; what makes skiing and snowboarding a lifestyle; what Hession got really wrong about lessons; the “haphazard” development of most ski areas; more Big Snows incoming; why Big Snow is a great business from a financial and expense point of view; looking to Top Golf for inspiration on scale and replicability; where we could see the next Big Snow; how many indoor ski domes could the United States handle?; what differentiates Big Snow from Alpine-X; whether future Big Snows will be standalone facilities or attached to larger malls; is American Dream Mall too big to fail?; finding salvation from school struggles as a parking lot attendant at Vernon Valley Great Gorge; Action Park; two future ski industry leaders working the rental shop; Intrawest kicks down the door and rearranges the world overnight; a “complicated” relationship with Mountain Creek; Intrawest’s rapid decline and the fate of Mountain Creek; leaving your dream job; ownership under Crystal Springs; how a three-week vacation will change your life; transforming Terrain Based Learning from a novelty to an empire; “I’ve been fascinated with how you go from working for a company to owning a company”; the far-flung but tightly bound ski industry and how Hession ended up running Big Snow; how much the Big Snow lease costs in a month; an Austin Powers moment; this is a technology company; an anti-kiosk position; the daily capacity of Mountain Creek; buying Mountain Creek; the art of operating a ski area; the biggest mistake most Mountain Creek operators have made; the bargain season pass as business cornerstone; “we were days away from Vail Resorts owning Mountain Creek today”; bankruptcy, Covid, and taking control of Mountain Creek and Big Snow in spite of it all; how much money Mountain Creek brings in in a year; “a lot of people don’t understand how hard it is to run a ski resort”; a monster chairlift project on the Vernon side of Mountain Creek; “a complicated relationship” with the oddest lift in the East ( the cabriolet) and what to do about it; “no one wants to take their skis on and off for a 1,000 feet of vertical”; which lift from Mountain Creek’s ancient past could make a comeback; bringing back the old Granite View and Route 80 trails; why expansion beyond the historic trail network is unlikely anytime soon; Creek’s huge natural snowmaking advantage; why no one at Mountain Creek “gives high-fives before the close of the season”; Hession is “absolutely” committed to stretching Creek’s season as long as possible; the biggest job of a ski resort in the summertime; the man who has blown snow at Mountain Creek for 52 years; whether Snow Operating would ever buy more outdoor ski resorts; “variation is evil”; the large ski resort that Hession tried to buy; “I don’t think anyone can run a massive network of resorts well”; an Applebee’s comparison; whether Mountain Creek or Big Snow could ever join a multi-mountain ski pass; why the M.A.X. Pass was a disaster for Mountain Creek; why Creek promotes the Epic and Ikon Passes on its social channels; changing your narrative; not a b******t mission statement; why the next decade in the ski industry may be the wildest yet; and the Joe P. Hession Foundation.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewI’ll admit that it can be awfully hard to appreciate the potential of Big Snow from the point of view of the casual observer. For anyone living in the New York metro area, the place spent a decade and a half as a vacant laughingstock, a symbol of excess and arrogance, an absurdly expensive novelty that was built, it seemed, just to be torn down. As I wrote last year:On Sept. 29, 2004, a coalition of developers broke ground on a project then known as Meadowlands Xanadu. Built atop a New Jersey swamp and hard by Interstate 95, the garish collection of boxes and ramps with their Romper Room palette could be seen from the upper floors of Manhattan skyscrapers, marooned in their vast asphalt parking lot, an entertainment complex with no one to entertain.It sat empty for years. Crushed, in turn, by incompetence, cost overruns, the Great Recession, lawsuits, and funding issues, the building that would host America’s first indoor ski slope melted into an eternal limbo of ridicule and scorn.I didn’t think it would ever open, and I didn’t understand the point if it did. This is the Northeast – we have no shortage of skiing. At four acres on 160-foot vertical drop, this would instantly become the smallest ski area in nine states. Wow. What’s the next item in your master development plan: an indoor beach in Hawaii?But eventually Big Snow did open: 5,545 days after the center’s groundbreaking. And it was not what I thought it would be. As I wrote the month after it opened:For its potential to pull huge numbers of never-evers into the addictive and thrilling gravitational pull of Planet Ski, Big Snow may end up being the most important ski area on the continent. It is cheap. It is always open. It sits hard against the fourth busiest interstate in the country and is embedded into a metro population of 20 million that has outsized influence on national and global trends. Over the coming decades, this ugly oversized refrigerator may introduce millions of people to the sport.I wrote that on Jan. 13, 2020, two months before Covid would shutter the facility for 177 days. It had only been open 94 days when that happened. Then, 388 days after re-opening on Sept. 1, 2020, fire struck. It caused millions in damage and another 244-day closure. After endless negotiations with insurance companies, Big Snow American Dream finally re-opened last month.So now what? Will this place finally stabilize? What about the disastrous financial state of the mall around it, which has, according to The Wall Street Journal, missed payments on its municipal bonds? Will we see more Big Snows? Will Snow Operating bid on Jay Peak? Will we ever get a real chairlift on Vernon at Mountain Creek? With Big Snow rebooted and live (take three), it was time to focus on the future of Snow Operating. And oh man, buckle up.Questions I wish I’d askedI could have stopped Joe at any time and asked a hundred follow-up questions on any of the dozens of points he made. But there would have been no point in that. He knew what I wanted to discuss, and the narrative is compelling enough on its own, without my input.Why you should ski Mountain Creek and Big SnowBig SnowIf you’re approaching Big Snow from the point of view of a seasoned skier, I want to stop you right there: this is not indoor Aspen. And it’s not pretending to be. Big Snow is skiing’s version of Six Flags. It’s an amusement park. All are welcome, all can participate. It’s affordable. It’s orderly. It’s easy. And it has the potential to become the greatest generator of new skiers since the invention of snow.And that will especially be true if this thing scales in the way that Hession believes it will. Imagine this: you live in Houston. No one in your family skis and so you’ve never thought about skiing. You’ve never even seen snow. You can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to. It looks cold, uncomfortable, exotic as moonrocks, and about as accessible. You’re not a skier and you probably never will be.But, what if Big Snow sprouts out of the ground like a snowy rollercoaster? It’s close. It’s cheap. It could be fun. You and your buddies decide to check it out. Or you take someone there on a date. Or you take your kids there as a distraction. Your lift ticket is well under $100 and includes skis and boots and poles and bindings and a jacket and snowpants (but not, for some reason, gloves), and access to instructors in the Terrain Based Learning area, a series of humps and squiggly snow features that move rookies with the ground beneath them. You enter as a novice and you leave as a skier. You go back. Five or six more times. Then you’re Googling “best skiing USA” and buying an Epic Pass and booking flights for Denver.And if that’s not you, how about this scenario that I face all the time: nonskiers tell me they want to try skiing. Can I take them? Given my background, this would not seem like an irrational request. But I’m not sure where to start. With lift tickets, rentals, and lessons, they’re looking at $150 to $200, plus a long car ride in either direction, just to try something that is cold and frustrating and unpredictable. I’m sure as hell not teaching them. My imagination proves unequal to the request. We don’t go skiing.Big Snow changes that calculus. Solves it. Instantly. Even, as Joe suggests in our interview, in places where you wouldn’t expect it. Denver or Salt Lake City or Minneapolis or Boston. Places that already have plenty of skiing nearby. Why? Well, if you’re in Denver, a snowdome means you don’t have to deal with I-70 or $199 lift tickets or figuring out which of the 100 chairlifts in Summit County would best suite your first ski adventure. You just go to the snowdome.The potential multiplying effect on new skiers is even more substantial when you consider the fact that these things never close. Hession points out that, after decades of refinement and tweaking, Mountain Creek is now finally able to consistently offer 100-day seasons. And given the local weather patterns, that’s actually amazing. But Big Snow – in New Jersey or elsewhere – will be open 365 days per year. That’s three and a half seasons of Mountain Creek, every single year. Multiply that by 10 or 20 or 30 Big Snows, and suddenly the U.S. has far more skiers than anyone ever could have imagined.Mountain CreekThere exists in the Northeast a coterie of unimaginative blockheads who seem to measure their self-worth mostly by the mountains that they dislike. Hunter is a big target. So is Mount Snow. But perhaps no one takes more ridicule, however, than Mountain Creek, that swarming Jersey bump with the shaky financial history and almost total lack of natural snow. Everyone remembers Vernon Valley Great Gorge (as Mountain Creek was once known), and its adjacent summertime operation, the raucous and profoundly dysfunctional Action Park. Or they remember Intrawest leaving Creek at the altar. Or that one time they arrived at Creek at noon on Dec. 29 and couldn’t find a place to park and spent half the afternoon waiting in line to buy a bowl of tomato soup. Or whatever. Now, based on those long-ago notions, they toss insults about Creek in between their Facebook posts from the Jackson Hole tram line or downing vodka shots with their crew, who are called the Drinksmore Boyz or Powder Dogzz or the Legalizerz or some orther poorly spelled compound absurdity anchored in a profound misunderstanding of how impressed society is in general with the antics of men in their 20s. Whatever. I am an unapologetic Mountain Creek fan. I’ve written why many times, but here’s a summary:First, it is close. From my Brooklyn apartment, I can be booting up in an hour and 15 minutes on a weekend morning. It is a bargain. My no-blackout pass for the 2019-20 season was $230. It is deceptively large, stretching two miles from Vernon to Bear Peaks along New Jersey state highway 94. Its just over thousand-foot vertical drop means the runs feel substantial. It has night skiing, making it possible to start my day at my Midtown Manhattan desk job and finish it hooking forty-mile-an-hour turns down a frozen mountainside. The place is quite beautiful. Really. A panorama of rolling hills and farmland stretches northwest off the summit. The snowmaking system is excellent. They opened on November 16 this year and closed on April 7 last season, a by-any-measure horrible winter with too many thaws and wave after wave of base-destroying rain. And, if you know the time and place to go, Mountain Creek can be a hell of a lot of fun, thanks to the grown-up chutes-and-ladders terrain of South Peak, an endless tiered sequence of launchpads, rollers and rails (OK, I don’t ski rails), that will send you caroming down the mountain like an amped-up teenager (I am more than twice as old as any teenager).I don’t have a whole lot to add to that. It’s my home mountain. After spending my first seven ski seasons tooling around Midwest bumps, the glory of having a thousand-footer that near to me will never fade. The place isn’t perfect, of course, and no one is trying to tell that story, including me, as you can see in the full write-up below, but when I only have two or three hours to ski, Creek is an amazing gift that I will never take for granted:Podcast notesHere are a few articles laying out bits of Hession’s history with Mountain Creek:New VP has worked at Creek since his teens – Advertiser-News South, Feb. 22, 2012Mountain Creek Enters Ski Season With New Majority Owner Snow Operating – Northjersey.com, Nov. 23, 2018I’ve written quite a bit about Big Snow and Mountain Creek over the years. Here are a couple of the feature stories:The Curse of Big Snow – Sept. 30, 2021The Most Important Ski Area in America – Jan. 13, 2020This is the fourth podcast I’ve hosted that was at least in part focused on Mountain Creek:Big Snow and Mountain Creek Vice President of Marketing & Sales Hugh Reynolds – March 3, 2020Hermitage Club General Manager Bill Benneyan, who was also a former president, COO, and general manager of Mountain Creek – Dec. 4, 2020Crystal Mountain, Washington President and CEO Frank DeBerry, who was also a former president, COO, and general manager of Mountain Creek – Oct. 22, 2021Here are podcasts I’ve recorded with other industry folks that Hession mentions during our interview:Vail Resorts Rocky Mountain Region Chief Operating Officer and Mountain Division Executive Vice President Bill Rock – June 14, 2022Mountain High and Dodge Ridge President and CEO Karl Kapuscinski - June 10, 2022Alpine-X CEO John Emery – Aug. 4, 2021Fairbank Group Chairman Brian Fairbank – Oct. 16, 2020Killington and Pico President and General Manager Mike Solimano – Oct. 13, 2019Here’s the trailer for HBO’s Class Action Park, the 2020 documentary profiling the old water park on the Mountain Creek (then Vernon Valley-Great Gorge) grounds:Hession mentioned a retired chairlift and retired trails that he’d like to bring back to Mountain Creek:What Hession referred to as “the Galactic Chair” is Lift 9 on the trailmap below, which is from 1989. This would load at the junction of present-day Upper Horizon and Red Fox, and terminate on the landing where the Sojourn Double and Granite Peak Quad currently come together (see current trailmap above). This would give novice skiers a route to lap gentle Osprey and Red Fox, rather than forcing them all onto Lower Horizon all the way back to the Cabriolet. I don’t need to tell any regular Creek skiers how significant this could be in taking pressure off the lower mountain at Vernon/North. Lower Horizon is fairly steep and narrow for a green run, and this could be a compelling alternative, especially if these skiers then had the option of downloading the Cabriolet.Hession also talked about bringing back a pair of intermediate runs. One is Granite View, which is trails 34 (Cop Out), 35 (Fritz’s Folly) and 33 (Rim Run) on Granite Peak below. The trail closed around 2005 or ’06, and bringing it back would restore a welcome alternative for lapping Granite Peak.The second trail that Hession referenced was Route 80 (trail 24 on the Vernon side, running beneath lift 8), which cuts through what is now condos and has been closed for decades. I didn’t even realize it was still there. Talks with the condo association have yielded progress, Hession tells me, and we could see the trail return, providing another connection between Granite and Vernon.Creek skiers are also still obsessed with Pipeline, the double-black visible looker’s right of the Granite lift on this 2015 trailmap:I did not ask Hession about this run because I’d asked Hugh Reynolds about it on the podcast two years ago, and he made it clear that Pipeline was retired and would be as long as he and Hession ran the place.Here are links to a few more items we mentioned in the podcast:The 2019 Vermont Digger article that lists Snow Operating as an interested party in the Jay Peak sale.We talked a bit about the M.A.X. Pass, a short-lived multi-mountain pass that immediately preceded (and was dissolved by), the Ikon Pass. Here’s a list of partner resorts on that pass. Skiers received five days at each, and could add the pass onto a season pass at any partner ski area. This was missing heavies like Jackson Hole, Aspen, and Taos, but it did include some ballers like Big Sky and Killington. Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, which includes Fernie and Kicking Horse and is now aligned with the Epic Pass, was a member, as were a few ski areas that have since eschewed any megapass membership: Whiteface, Gore, Belleayre, Wachusett, Alyeska, Mountain High, Lee Canyon, and Whitewater. Odd as that seems, I’m sure we’ll look back at some of today’s megapass coalitions with shock and longing.This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 19. Free subscribers got it on June 22. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 67/100 in 2022, and number 313 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

covid-19 united states america ceo new york texas colorado michigan new jersey hawaii north hbo east pass built epic curse wall street journal manhattan partners coo midwest minneapolis places paid north american jersey lift route salt lake city creek northeast talks pipeline bankruptcy circuit central park folly fritz vernon crushed multiply great recession odd skiing kodak interstate mammoths resorts googling powder applebees austin powers keystone ben franklin jackson hole six flags whistler solves vail big sky top golf skiers granite additives osprey manifest destiny taos whitewater telluride meadowlands action park ikon canadian rockies north jersey midtown manhattan breck beaver creek east rutherford red fox summit county crested butte fernie vail resorts revelstoke mountain high cop out killington whiteface cabriolet romper room squaw big snow alterra american dream mall snow mountain mountain creek wachusett jay peak epic pass kicking horse 2018i mount snow intrawest

FWT Podcast Episode 6 - Kicking Horse, Golden BC, Canada

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2022 79:38

Mark Warner and FWT announcer, Derek Foose, recap all the action from the third stop of the FWT season at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, British Columbia, Canada. We discuss the last minute venue change at Kicking Horse due to unsafe snow conditions and the incredible performances of the riders including those who made the cut and those who didn't. Featuring: Maxime Chabloz, Juliette Willman, Tom Peiffer, Lolo Besse. Enjoy!

canada horses golden british columbia skiing snowboarding mark warner bc canada freeride world tour fwt kicking horse

FWT PODCAST Episode 6 – Kicking Horse, Golden BC. Canada

Freeride World Tour Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2022

Mark Warner and FWT announcer, Derek Foose, recap all the action from the third stop of the FWT season at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, British Columbia, Canada. We discuss the last minute venue change at Kicking Horse due to unsafe snow conditions as well as the incredible performances of the riders including those […] The post FWT PODCAST Episode 6 – Kicking Horse, Golden BC. Canada appeared first on Low Pressure Podcast.

canada sports adventure horses pressure golden snow mountains british columbia skiing ski powder snowboarding snowboards skiers skis mark warner bc canada fwt kicking horse

Kicking Horse, Canada & the CUT | Stop #3 RECAP

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2022 79:38

Featuring: Maxime Chabloz, Juliette Willman, Tom Peiffer, Lolo Besse. Mark Warner and FWT announcer, Derek Foose, talk about the last minute venue change at Kicking Horse due to unsafe snow conditions as well as the incredible performances of the riders including those who made the cut and those who didn't. More FWT: https://www.freerideworldtour.com

canada horses skiing snowboarding mark warner freeride world tour fwt kicking horse

#72: Tom Hoyne (Kicking Horse Coffee) - Making Great Products & Ignoring Noise

rose bros podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2021 69:42

Hello, and welcome to episode #72 of the rose bros podcast!This episode we are joined by Tom Hoyne - VP of Coffee & Quality Assurance at Kicking Horse Coffee.Prior to Kicking Horse Coffee, Tom co-founded Kootenay Pasta, a high end pasta company which he sold after growing tired of the demanding schedule running the business. Tom then joined Kicking Horse Coffee in the early 2000's, and was a key member in helping Kicking Horse lead the craft coffee revolution, and becoming a multi-million-dollar global business.In 2017 Kicking Horse Coffee was purchased by Italian conglomerate Lavazza and the deal valued the company at $215 million.We sat down for a smooth cup of coffee and discussed the importance of quality products, the origins of Kicking Horse Coffee, how to make a great cup of coffee, ignoring noise when building a business, why coffee prices are rising and a lot more.Enjoy!Also, This week's podcast was brought to you by A1 Web Development.Looking for a new website or eCommerce storefront ? A1 can help launch your business online through Amazon, Shopify, Walmart or eBay to access millions of new customers.Check out a1dev.ca today for more details on how you can grow your business. Support the show

amazon italian coffee horses walmart products ecommerce ebay shopify ignoring a1 quality assurance lavazza hoyne kicking horse

The Kicking Horse Pass

Coast To Coast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2021 17:40

Today, I'm looking at the building of the railway at the Kicking Horse Pass. The push to finish the railroad before the money ran out led the CPR to create the steepest rail grade on the continent at this daunting pass, something that would last 25 years. It had immediate deadly results. Support: www.patreon.com/canadaehx Donate: www.canadaehx.com E-mail: craig@canadaehx.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/craigbaird Instagram: @Bairdo37 Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/canadianhistoryehx

pass horses cpr kicking horse

#83 The DataOps Show with Chinmayee and David

Hashmap on Tap

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2021 46:04

Join Kelly, Chinmayee, and David as they talk DataOps over a cup of coffee. The three discuss their perspectives on DataOps, how they have seen it evolve over the past few years, and what to expect going forward. Show Notes: Hashmap blog post on DataOps: medium.com/hashmapinc/using-dbt-to-execute-elt-pipelines-in-snowflake-dbe76d5beed5 Check out Data Kitchen's DataOps Vendor Landscape: datakitchen.io/the-dataops-vendor-landscape-2021/ Have more questions on data integration tools? Check out our Data Integration Workshop: hashmapinc.com/workshop-dataintegration On tap for today's episode: Turkish Coffee, Kick-Ass Coffee by Kicking Horse, and Bright and Early Native Pecan Coffee Contact Us: https://www.hashmapinc.com/reach-out

bright dataops turkish coffee kicking horse

#3 Ripping it up in the Freeride World Tour - Jess Hotter

Untamed Aotearoa

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 1, 2020 59:06

Jess Hotter went from the local slopes of Turoa Skifield to shredding the Freeride World Tour. Instead of going straight to university after finishing high school, Jess headed off to Canada for a GAP year and has never looked back. She has just finished her first season on the Freeride Ski World Tour, coming away with ‘Rookie of the year’ and winning gold at Kicking Horse Mountain stop in Canada. We chat about her passion for skiing, mountain culture and the freeride lifestyle. We talk about risk, decision-making and the psychology of Freeride competitions. We also talk about Obsidian, the latest event to hit the snow scene in New Zealand.Episode photo :by Jackson LanaMusic: Wild and Free by Hope Social ClubEPISODE LINKS:Jess Hotter - Winning Run at Kicking Horse (short video)Personal websiteInstagramFacebook

canada new zealand rookies gap obsidian hotter ripping freeride freeride world tour kicking horse

Heather Heasman

The VOW

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 6, 2020 34:06

Heather Heasman is a senior business leader with over 20 years experience in strategy development, change management and leadership development in the profit and non-profit sectors. She has worked internationally and has most recently provided management consulting and executive coaching services to privately held start ups and foundations in Alberta and British Columbia. ⁣ ⁣As an experienced instructor, Heather has taught at both the Haskayne School of Business and the Bissett School of Business in business strategy, business communications and entrepreneurship. ⁣An avid community volunteer, Heather has a wide variety of governance experience and has served on a number of boards from being the current Chair of the Board of Wood's Homes to being a Past President of Kicking Horse's Freeride team.⁣

business board wood homes british columbia past presidents freeride haskayne school kicking horse

Up & Coming? FWT World Champion, Isaac Freeland

BLISTER Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 23, 2020 57:22

As part of our Up & Coming Series, we had intended to talk to Isaac Freeland, because he is a very good skier and he was definitely on his way up. But then Isaac threw us a curve ball by not only winning the 2020 Freeride World Tour Rookie of the Year award… he went and won the whole thing.So even if “Up & Comer” now feels like a bit of an understatement, we asked Isaac to take us through his first season on the Freeride World Tour and walk us through each stop. We also discuss what it was like competing against some of the biggest names in skiing; how he approached each particular comp; the rather surreal — and abrupt — end to this comp season, and more.TOPICS & TIMESEarthquakes & COVID-19 (2:11)Background, injuries, & finding his style (4:10)2020 FWT 1st stop: Hakuba, Japan (12:15)2nd stop: Kicking Horse, BC (17:55)3rd stop: Andorra (22:45)4th stop: Fieberbrunn, Austria (29:28)5th stop: Verbier, Switzerland (35:19)Isaac’s comp skis (41:49)Change or keep the current comp format? (47:20)Free running / Parkour (51:37)What’s the best question I haven’t asked you? (53:19) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

japan change switzerland austria bc world champion comer andorra parkour freeland verbier freeride world tour fwt kicking horse fieberbrunn

Ep5 — St. John's Trevor Gulliver Gatecrashes a Breakfast

The Pellicle Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2020 58:39

In today's episode I get to visit one of my favourite places in the world—St. John—a place the late Anthony Bourdain described as “the restaurant of my dreams.” A truer statement has seldom been uttered.I was invited by Will Bucknall, co-founder of Kicking Horse, a beer distributor with a wine industry background, helping to educate and supply some of London's best restaurants with great beer. The subject of food and beer is one of my favourites, which is unsurprising considering they're some of my favourite things. Put them together and you have perfection.After Will and I chew on this subject for a while we're joined by St. John's co-founder Trevor Gulliver—a man with a great many opinions—and whether you agree with him or not, you'll no doubt find his views to be thought provoking.This episode was recorded in a working restaurant ahead of a busy service, so please bare with the background noise.And don't go anywhere once the interview has finished, as I'll be reading another piece from our website: a rumination on citrus fruit from chef and founder of Nanban Restaurant, Tim Anderson.Host: Matthew CurtisGuests: Will Bucknall — Kicking Horse, Trevor Gulliver — St. John Restaurant Read more at www.pelliclemag.comSupport our podcast at patreon.com/pelliclemag

food wine restaurants beer breakfast st john anthony bourdain craft beer cider tim anderson gulliver natural wine kicking horse

Social Audit for Kicking Horse Coffee

The Tuesday Show by Blue Light Media

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 9, 2019 11:02

On this week's episode of the Tuesday Show, we're brewing up something special... pun intended. But, in all seriousness, this week Hannah and Mikhail discuss Kicking Horse Coffee's marketing strengths and put them through the Heart Line Assessment! Kicking Horse Coffee has been around for 20 years, and has rightly earned it's title as Canada's #1 Whole Bean coffee. All of their coffee is organic and fair trade, roasted in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. For more information, visit their website. We want to hear your thoughts! Head to LinkedIn and share what you think about this Heart Line Assessment.

head canada social marketing media coffee horses branding kicking audit canadian rocky mountains kicking horse

125 Tanner Hall